


between sin and sense

by pahdme



Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Haruno Sakura, Dom!Kakashi, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, I know, I'm cautiously tagging this PWP because I promised once and ate dirt, Love Triangles, Modern AU, PWP, Polyamory, This isn’t him or him, an accident but not an unpleasant one, basically a modern cop romcom AU, because no one else is writing for this triangle and it needs to be a thing, between all involved, closer in age but there's still an age gap here, eventual polyamory, if you agree that the title is bad just mind your business, listen I suck with tags, no beta we die like men, people don't appreciate genma nearly enough, this is him AND him, what the fuck is that summary anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:47:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 49,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21635353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pahdme/pseuds/pahdme
Summary: One thing Sakura knows better than any other, is, that if you want something,you have to go for it. Taking charge is her specialty at this point. She’s a loaded gun at all times and prides herself on it.a modern day AU Kakashi/Sakura/Genma fic that looks like a love triangle at first glance, but is it? as a scorned divorcée Sakura is looking for fun and release, not two cops that make her head spin on her shoulders! — a story chock full of gratuitous smut, banter, good friendships and some angst as Sakura navigates her dilemma. will she deal? will they?👀
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura/Hatake Kakashi/Shiranui Genma, Haruno Sakura/Shiranui Genma
Comments: 391
Kudos: 360





	1. so we meet

**Author's Note:**

> hi! if you're here because of bite of lightning, which I promise will update soon, and think to yourself: _what the **fuck** is she doing_  
> just know, same. i'm side eyeing myself the hardest here lmao
> 
> anyway, after reading the handful of fics on these three I fell _hard_ for this couple/triangle. and then got really depressed that there's not more for them out there, so I decided to take matters into my own hands
> 
> hope you enjoy and I'm always grateful for a comment!

If asked, Sakura would never admit to even _know_ this bar. She would deny ever stepping foot past the worn old metal doors. Be appalled at the accusation of being a regular. It’s a seedy spot on the side of town she doesn’t frequent, a dim little dive bar that no one, other than cops, visits for any other reason than to get a stiff drink or company. Someone like her has no business being here, has nothing to seek out and much less to find here. Yet the bartender knows her order. That begs the question, what the hell a woman of her standing does in a place like this? Well, her job is stressful, her friends are busy and the thrill of a dirty secret has always excited the doctor beyond reason.

It’s not her first time coming here, far from it, but it’s certainly the first time she’s seen a silver fox like _him_ here.

One thing Sakura knows better than any other, is, that if you want something, _you have to go for it_. Taking charge is her specialty at this point. She’s a loaded gun at all times and prides herself on it.  
Silently she slips off her bar stool and saunters over to the other end of the bar, the darker part, like a tigress on the prowl. Her prey is nursing a glass of whiskey neat and gains appeal the closer she comes. A strong back stretches his white, slightly greyed, button up over his shoulders with the way he’s slouched forward, leaning on the bar top and it makes Sakura’s spine tingle. What draws her eye much easier though is his head of outrageously messy silver white hair, sticking up in all directions above his collar. She hasn’t even seen more than a glimpse at his profile and yet she wants to bury her hands in his locks and drag her nails over his scalp. _Keep your cool, Sakura. You’re a grown woman, not a hormonal teenager._

The click of her heels has alerted him to her approach and Kakashi has to repress a sigh, drowning it in his whiskey. All he came here for was a drink and some background noise to drown out his head, not someone asking him for attention in exchange for a mediocre orgasm. It’s been too many years for him to do a walk of shame and only the thought of having to kick out whoever is slipping into the seat next to him, makes him feel exhausted. Just as he’s about to twist around to let her down gently, he can feel someone’s hot breath tickle his neck and a feminine voice, that might as well belong to a deity, caress the shell of his ear.

“Hey, you,” Sakura rasps into his ear lowly, as though they’re familiar, keen to avoid touching him anywhere as she pulls back into her seat. Her knees feel soft and quiver. She’s never hit anyone up this way, never felt _this_ bold. His hair had intrigued her, his arms made her feel flushed but when she was finally seated beside him and got a good look at his face, Sakura was overwhelmed with want. Her decision was made in the fraction of a section and she let instinct take the lead.

Not once in the thirty-eight years of his life has he been hit on like this, nor by someone like _her_. The days of picking up women in a bar for a night of fun are over in his eyes, or so he thought. She’s perched on the bar stool like a gift from the gods; pure life, sheer vitality clad in sin and scarlet silk. He doesn’t know what to look at first. Her petal hair? The creamy expanse of skin wherever the silk is not gathered – her collar, her thighs, her cleavage? Or wherever the silk _is_ gathered, like her hips, her waist, her delicate arms? No, the choice is clear upon seeing her face. Striking mint green eyes seem to devour him and if it was her plush heart shaped lips biting chunks out of him, he wouldn’t even mind. He’s drunk off her sight more than off his drink and feels downright stunned when she flashes him a triumphant grin.

“Hi,” he responds after a long beat and his voice sounds distant and foreign to his own ears. The look on her face begins to swing into smugness and with every second of him just staring, he can feel his ego bruise. _Look at her, she’s at least ten years younger than you and you let her turn you into nothing more than an awkward teenage boy? Get yourself together._ So he does. Kakashi clears his throat and straightens up, turning to her fully and leaning only one arm on the bar. “Do I know you?”

“Not yet,” she laughs and the sound is pearly like her teeth. The vision in front of him crosses her legs and smooths the silk over them before extending her small hand to his. “Sakura.”

Amusement curls one corner of his mouth into a lopsided, roguish grin and Sakura is already feeling decidedly too hot. The electric spark that bites them both when he shakes her hand doesn’t help the matter _at all._

“Can I buy you a drink, Sakura?”

* * *

The scent of a crisp aftershave hits her before he’s even in her field of vision. Then comes the warmth, the earthiness of his cologne. If the guy sliding into the seat next to her, looks anything like he smells, she wants to become one with the soil. As she feels him settle and twist around to her, her stomach flutters a little. A sip of martini, to wash it away, but anticipation floats.

“Hi,” he breathes. She can hear his grin. He’s only uttered a greeting to her but that single word rolled down her spine like whiskey down her throat. She always had a sweet spot for an old single malt. A pink brow arches, prompting him to go on but she won’t look at him. _Not yet_. “What’s a girl like you doing in a bar like this?”

Unlike his pickup line, his voice is smooth. She turns and finds, so is he. Slick and suave. And impossibly warm. She looks him up and down briefly. If she was a lesser woman, he’d make her sweat. Brunette glossy locks fall from behind his ear into his face, down to his shoulders. She can’t help but think about how boyish his hair makes him look, how easily she could bury her hands in them. Her eyes move and lock with his. Lashes so dark and dense they’d make any girl jealous frame the warm brown eyes twinkling at her. Indulgent and so sweet she gets a toothache just looking at him. The way he looks back at her though burns, and maybe he isn’t like whiskey, maybe he’ll heat her up like cinnamon. Scorch her like fireball. Scanning his face further she finds laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, signs of a good life, a life of joy. He’s older than her, definitely, but Sakura has always had a taste for an older vintage. A wide jaw compliments the softness of his mouth, she finds. Pretty plush lips are pulled into a sure, knee-weakening grin and she has no doubts that a myriad of women have fallen prey to it. She wouldn’t object to being one of them. The thing that makes her snort though, much to his dismay, is the toothpick nestled into one corner of his mouth, lazily twirling as his tongue plays with it. _Go back to your country bar, boy. I don’t squaredance._

“Avoiding guys like you,” Sakura deadpans eventually, giving him another long once over before turning back to her drink and polishing it off.

The grin vanishes off his face and he scowls at her, but the moment is short lived. Tapping the rim of his glass he leans closer to her, the hair on her arms stands up straight when he murmurs, “Honey, you don’t know guys like me.”

His voice is definitely fireball. But his lines are so cheesy, Sakura can’t help from rolling her eyes so far back she could give herself a headache. A mirthless laugh breaks free from her lips and she turns to him in earnest, not so accidentally brushing her knee against his in the process.

“ _Honey_ , I know _plenty_ of guys like you. And they all say exactly what you just said,” Despite the toothpick giving him a distinctly sleezy feeling, especially coupled with the awful pick up lines, Sakura has to admit that she just can’t convince herself to be averse to him. He’s pretty enough and looks clean and groomed. Something she can’t say about a lot of other candidates around here.

“Tell you what, I’ll buy you a drink and we have a chat. I’m sure you’ve got more ancient and awful pick up lines where those came from, but I must say they’re not doing it for me,” she smiles at him amicably, and thoroughly enjoys how his eyes dart to her mouth. The small apologetic grin he shoots back with a nod is enough to make her cross her legs, the friction of lace enough for now. “Let’s see if you can figure out what does.”

Even if she knows guys like him, he looks like fun and who is she to deny herself a good time?

* * *

They’re on their second drink and Sakura thinks about how to proceed, toying with the maraschino cherry in her glass. Acting as innocently and mindless as possible, she brings it to her lips and pulls it off the stem with her teeth. She chews thoughtfully like she didn’t see him zero in on her mouth as it wrapped unnecessarily slowly around the syrupy fruit.

“What did you say, is your job again?” She asks, swallowing the sickeningly sweet thing and licks the wetness of her drink off her bottom lip. Genma blinks and takes a second to regain the ability to speak, humming a ‘hmm?’ before her question registers and he falls back into a grin.

“Oh, I’m a cop.” He doesn’t give her a break to say anything and continues instead with a smirk and a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. “Yes, I carry and yes, I also have a spare set of handcuffs.” He winks, fully expecting her to blush and gets sorely disappointed.

Is she supposed to be scandalized by that? Sakura gives him a coy smile, blinking up at him through her lashes before following her hand’s movement as it falls to his forearm on the bar. Tantalizingly her index finger traces featherlight circles on the inside of his wrist and Genma swallows the hitch in his throat.

“Now that’s funny. I _just_ met a cop the other week. In this bar even...” Her wide eyes turn to him in mock surprise; she is acting so over the top innocent, he almost laughs. With baiting him so openly, he’d be an absolute fool to bite. But the way the corner of her mouth twitches, and how her nails scrape over his skin as she retracts her hand to drink, makes his jeans feel tight and his heartbeat drop. If she wants to play with him, he’ll be a happy toy.

“Maybe I know him. The precinct is small, you know. What’s he like?” Genma smiles easy and shifts the toothpick to the other side. It’s his turn to establish contact again when her hand doesn’t return to its ministrations. Since they sit so close now, he drops his hand and brushes his rough fingertips over her exposed knee, beginning to rub smooth circles over the edge of her kneecap with his thumb, just the way she did on his arm. It has the desired effect and Sakura inhales sharply, attempting to conceal it by biting her plump bottom lip. It’s not long that he gets to revel in triumph, a wicked look overtakes her face before it splits into a grin.

“Oh, he’s an absolute god in bed.”


	2. first brush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> risking that people following bite of lightning will beat me with a stick: I lowkey have a plot line worked out for this. at this chapter pace this fic might end up 20 chapters long though idk but _oh well_
> 
> as always, please leave a comment if you enjoy! even if you don't, tell me why

The pointed tip of her heel scrapes lightly up the fabric of his jeans, from ankle to the middle of his calf. Kakashi has to hide behind his drink. Both to focus on the burn of his whiskey and to avoid the _’fuck me eyes’_ , she’s giving him across her old fashioned. This woman knows exactly what she wants from him. _How refreshing._ While he would gladly give her anything she desires, it’s not exactly his style anymore to jump right in. _The chase is the best part, isn’t it?_ He’s a gentleman after all. He doesn’t exactly want to make her beg for it, but he has a feeling that she might be so much more fun when a little agitated. _And fun is what she’s after, right?_ She’s practically radiating energy and Kakashi can’t recall a time when he’s felt so alive around someone. Sakura pumps up his cells, he feels his blood rush when she looks at him, like he’s a plant that she’s just here to water.

Perfect, straight, white teeth sink into her bottom lip for a moment, biting back a pleased grin as she finally averts her searing gaze. Even if this gorgeous stranger throws her for a loop, Sakura has been doing this for a while now. Love, or even wooing, is not what she looks for. Not in a place like this, not for a long time anymore. _Love._ It’s barely even a word found in her vocabulary anymore. A four letter cluster of nothing but agony, she’s decided — since her divorce. She’s content with that decision. Has been for more than a year. That ugly little thing cost her years of her life, half her confidence and almost all of her sanity until she realised what was even eating away at her.

When she clothes her body in exquisite materials at night, inches of lace, yards of silk, organza and linen, slips on her thinnest heels and hails the cab to the other side of town, she falls into routine. Routine is easy, it’s comfort. If you know what’s coming, you can prepare. Sakura has always loathed surprises. _This is a welcome one though,_ she muses, casting her eyes upon Kakashi again, her own drink raised for a sip. From his worn boots, up and over the old metal belt buckle, she swallows hard and lingers briefly on it, up over the row of buttons on the threadbare shirt to his face. _Oh, that face._

A sharp jawline rests over top of the adam’s apple, that she watches bob up and down as he takes a swig of his drink. From there on it only gets worse. Like an 80s romcom heart throb, he has a freaking beauty mark below the left corner of his full bottom lip. Sakura promises herself to pay extra attention to that later. High cheekbones structure his features further and are only marred by a thin vertical scar running from above his left brow down, almost meeting his jaw. As embarrassing as she finds it, the sight of it makes her want to fan herself inwardly. Malachite eyes meet charcoal grey and the question falls out of her mouth easily; it’s simple but smooth and round from a year of use.

“So, what do you do for a living?”

“Guess.”

That’s not the answer she expected. Her brow twitches, irritation and surprise tugging it inward into a flash of a scowl. Sakura studies him again, analytically instead of hungry this time. Shirt too worn and grey from countless washes to be a lawyer. Hands too slender and cuticles too smooth to be a carpenter. Eyes too sad to not work with people. An indentation on his belt, something is clipped there often.

“You’re a cop,” she concludes in a soft hush, more breathless than she anticipated. His eyes grow wide, but his smile is appreciative.

“Impressive,” he compliments and his chest puffs with her pleased flush, “Profiler?”

Sakura throws her head back in a laugh and the sound is possibly the purest yet fakest thing in this filthy establishment. It’s not genuine, it doesn’t find home in her chest. A laugh to show her derision but soft enough, _feminine_ and _subordinate_ enough, to not bruise the male ego. Shame, sadness and anger swirl to a toxic cocktail in his gut at the realisation: She laughs like this often, she deals with weak men often. She knows how to dull her vibrancy by heart.

“Absolutely not,” she smiles, brushing a blush-coloured curl behind her ear. Silence stretches between them, only interrupted by them both sipping on their drinks. When she realises he isn’t going to do her the same courtesy of guessing her profession, she adds, “I’m a doctor. Trauma surgeon actually.”

At first he looks impressed again and sweeps his gaze down her form. Sakura can’t help but sit up taller, presenting herself almost. An edge of pride and defiance on each shoulder. Beneath something hot and heady in his eyes lies scrutiny though and she’s not surprised when his brow furrows.

“Aren’t you a little young for that?”

“Why, how old do you think I am?”

Now _he_ laughs. A rough sound, rugged and edgy, like he’s forgotten how to use it. “I’m smarter than to guess a woman’s age,” he grins, all canines and wit, “the only thing I know for sure, is, that I got at least a decade on you, angel.” _Angel?_

Sakura would be angry at a term so patronising, if he didn’t look just as surprised as herself at that unexpected pet name. His mouth opens and he’s about to apologise, she _knows_ , so Sakura cuts him off. Smoothly she leans forward and places a firm hand on his thigh, too far inward and too close for comfort.

“So, you think I’m angelic?” Kakashi doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t even think, his mind is blue screening at her touch and completely short circuiting at her words. “Well, you got another thing coming then.”

* * *

Sakura holds onto the streetlamp with her outstretched arm as she slowly swings herself around it, her thighs rubbing against each other with each deliberate step around.

He watches her for a moment, thumbing out a cigarette from the half smashed pack in his pocket and lighting it behind the shield of his hand.

“What are you doing?” He laughs. It comes easier now. Instead of rocks crashing, it’s more of a thick rumble in his chest. It flips her stomach in every direction of the wind. To keep eye contact as she starts another round, her head falls back with a laugh and her hair cascades down like a wall of coral and rose. Kakashi could see her hanging off his bed like this.

Once she’s on the right side to face him again, her arm crooks and Sakura pulls herself close to the pole. His eyes follow attentively as she presses against it, flashing him a catty grin and a demure flutter of her lashes, “I just thought about how my apartment is all the way across town.” _Where do you live, detective?_ “And I _hate_ long car rides.”

One, two, three slow steps and the only thing dividing them is one half step and the metal of the street lamp. Kakashi is a patient man, always has been. Not even Sakura’s gravity-like pull can shake that; someone this beautiful and vibrant deserves the courtesy of savouring every moment. He takes a long drag from the cigarette before flicking it onto the road behind her, eyes never leaving hers as he unfurls his spine from a seemingly perpetual slouch. “You’ve got horrible posture,” she murmurs, but her voice is fluttery and there’s none of her medical authority swinging the scold. In answer he raises his chin and gazes down on her, the faintest smirk tugging at his lips. Her stomach squeezes tight. It’s only now that she realises how tall he actually is, how much taller than her really, and how much authority he must possess in his job. Naturally, her breaths grow shallow and a dull ache spreads from behind her belly button and below. When he starts to twirl a lock of hers around his finger, Sakura struggles to not just jump him right there.

“Aren’t you lucky that my place is right down that block,” with every syllable his smirk grows wider. Sakura rounds the lamp as he speaks but just as she’s about to lean forward he pulls away and shoves his hands into his pockets and cocks his head down the road. “Just a few minutes that way.”

_What a tease._

The disappointment must have been painfully obvious on her face because Kakashi slings his arm around her waist and pulls her close, earning him a sharp inhale and an immediate sigh as his lips brush her earlobe, “Don’t worry, Sakura, I’ll take care of you.”

* * *

It’s the first time Sakura has even _seen_ the bathroom of the bar, much less almost gotten fucked against the sink. But now his strong, large hand is cupping her breast, her head leans back against his shoulder and she’s pressing herself hard against him. _Well, he made me laugh. How could I not?_

Genma’s free hand slips from its place resting on her hip down her thigh and begins to toy with the ruffled hem of her dress. Gathering it and dragging it up before smoothing it meticulously back out. Due to their proximity and the limited space of the bathroom his scent wraps around her, tight and choking like a necktie. It’s musky and warm and so earthy, Sakura can only reiterate her first thought about him: _She wants to become one with the soil._

Bracing herself on the filthy sink, Sakura arches her back and grinds with insistence against him. It earns her a breathless groan against her neck and a snap of his hips that makes her see stars.

“Let’s not do this here,” his voice is choppy and she can’t deny that it strokes her ego. The same way his lips stroke her neck as he presses fluttery kisses along it. “I want you in a bed. I’m sure you taste divine.” Green eyes roll into the back of her head and Sakura inhales deeply, greedily, before she manages to twist herself around and meet his hazy gaze.

Without his toothpick he’s even more handsome, downright _pretty_ and that boyish grin on his lips turns her knees to jelly. She should let him go, usher him out and tell him to get a cab already, but Sakura is hungry. Downright starved. Generous cops seem to be her newest craving.

Gripping one of his strong hands she guides him gently below the hem of her dress, not breaking eye contact as she spreads her legs. Liquid pools of ganache disappear behind fluttering lids and his forehead drops to her shoulder when he can feel just how sweltering _hot_ she is. The lace of her panties is properly soaked and her drawn out sigh upon the brush of his fingertips wears his resolve thin.

“Don’t you want to sample me before taking me home?”

A beat of silence, Genma is still as a statue against her. Then his soft hair tickles her neck as he raises his head again and pins her with his gaze. “You have to be quiet though. Can you be quiet for me, sweetheart?”

Generally Sakura considers herself to be strong. Brash. Dominant even. She’s not a soft hearted thirteen year old anymore, or a hopeful twenty year old standing at the altar. Sakura isn’t even a broken hearted twenty-six year old anymore, finding out that her husband cheated. She doesn’t chase men anymore. She doesn’t let men put her down, not at her job nor in her private life. Her mentor has cultivated her temper, has taught her to let no one with a dick patronize her, especially in the past year since finalizing her divorce. And Sakura hasn’t. Until last week she found no appeal in this kind of dirty talk, but now? Now she’s beginning to see the benefit. Somehow she gets the feeling that Genma will take care of her, that he respects her deeper than any of the men that pretend to do so in her day to day life, even if he calls her sweetheart. A spark curls up her spine and this isn’t arousal, this is the joy of liberation.

Biting her lip, Sakura sits back on the rim of the sink and spreads her thighs fully for him. It is answer enough. Genma leans forward, braces himself on the mirror behind her with one hand as the other slips into her dripping panties. His fingertips are calloused, when he brushes the sensitive bundle of her clit, a sharp gasp bursts forth from Sakura’s chest. Immediately he stops and raises his brows at her, challenge in his eyes and an unspoken question laced in his smirk: _Didn’t I say quiet?_

A glint sparks in her eyes and Genma wouldn’t be surprised if she bared her teeth at him. Aside from her beauty, it’s her decided feistiness that drew him in at once. She obeys his order to be quiet, but only at her own choosing, not because he said so. Setting her jaw, Sakura shifts her weight onto only one arm and presses her palm over her mouth before rolling her hips forward and into his touch. The sound is muffled enough for anyone outside of this bathroom but Genma can hear her moan and he twitches against his jeans. To her delight it’s not just her moving any longer, he springs into motion by slipping lower along her folds and drawing circles over her clit with his thumb. It’s a little evil but he has no intentions of making her cum. He doesn’t cease his ministrations on her pearl but lets his index finger tease the pliable softness of her entrance. She jerks, chasing the pressure of his fingertip.

“ _Fuck_ , you’re wet,” he rasps into her neck, placing an open mouthed kiss into the spot between her ear and her jaw as he’s fulfilling her wish and pushing a finger inside her. It curls a couple times inside her, stroking a rough spot that makes her shiver until suddenly he retracts his whole hand and Sakura practically screams in frustration. The hand covering her mouth shoots forward and fists into his shirt. Now she bares her teeth at him. Fire and fury burn behind her irises as she hisses, “Don’t stop!”

Far too softly for her sensitized body does he uncurl her fingers from his shirt before brushing his thumb over her cheek. “I only wanted to sample. The fun is for home.” With that, the finger whose feeling she’s still mourning, disappears in his mouth and Genma moans. “ _So_ much fun at home. You’re _delightful_ , doll.”

Sakura is pissed though and shoves hard at his chest, harder than he would’ve thought her capable, before she’s marching for the door. “Get a fucking cab, I’m covering the bill,” she barks. He can’t say if her shove knocked the wind from his lungs or if it’s the way she looks at him. Flushed and angry, he almost _wants_ her to smite him. Mollifying he catches her around the waist as she unlocks the door, nuzzling her neck, he murmurs sweetly, “I promise I’ll make up for it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise they'll fuck in the next chapter


	3. synergy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote down the entire plot line for this fic today. only thing i can tell you: sakura is about to be STRESSED lmfao
> 
> this chapter is pure smut but still relevant to the plot, then again if you’re here, you’re probably not here to skip the smut

The first time they kiss, he kisses her. In the back of the cab. Soothingly. Slow and deep, with both of his large hands cupping her face. A kiss so sensual and sweet, it gives her a toothache and makes her bottom lip quiver. Like him. Genma tastes like fireball and bonfires.

The first time they kiss, she kisses him. Shoved against his front door angrily, hot and heated, more teeth than tongue. They share no tenderness between them; there’s only rough recognition and scrabbling at memories from a life they recognize but don’t remember. Kakashi tastes like smoke and whiskey.

* * *

  
“My key,” he barely gets the two words in edgewise, taking advantage of her sighing into his mouth to speak them into the bare milimetres between them. She understands but can’t stop herself from stealing just a couple more deep kisses, fisting in his jacket’s collar desperately, before letting him go. As soon as there is space between them, Kakashi pats down his own body like he’s a perp he’s frisking. She recognizes the shake in his hands as they grow frantic, moving from his chest down to his jeans’ pockets until he can feel the jagged teeth of his key. His entire face lights up as he retrieves them, grinning wide as he unlocks the door and with the sound of the bolt sliding free, there’s something sliding sideways in Sakura too. Now is not the time to freak out about it though and she squashes the feeling fast, instead she grins right back at him and doesn’t wait to be invited in, she just shoulders past him.

“Where’s the bedroom?”

The door has shut behind him and Kakashi startles at her bluntness. His hand is raised toward her, he was just about to cup her face for a kiss, when she chucked the question at him. It takes him a couple breaths to gain his bearings, shaking free of his stupor when he realizes that she’s still grinning wide at him. There’s no other choice but to match her, the euphoric feeling radiates off her and it’s contagious.

“I’ll take you,” he laughs and it comes so much easier now than the first time that night. The edges of the sound don’t catch on his ribs any more and Sakura wants to drink it straight from his chest. Laughter, too, is contagious. Or so it seems because she squeals girlishly with hers when he slings her over his shoulder and starts down the hall.

As soon as her back hits the mattress of his large bed though, all laughter, all silliness, dies in her throat. They haven’t even taken off their shoes yet, not to mention anything else, but still, he’s on her. Solid between her thighs, like this is where he belongs. Strong and exciting as his hands roam over the curve of her waist and hold onto her hips, fitting like they were made for him. Hot and greedy as he claims her mouth, her breath, her heat.

There is no other option for Sakura but to respond in kind. She slings her arms tightly around his neck, clutches him to her with her thighs wrapped around his waist and sinks her fingers into his hair. They both sigh deeply; the connection is instant like closing an electric circuit.

His tongue explores her mouth at leisure, feels her teeth, every ridge of her mouth as she works to learn about his in return. Only when they both feel dizzy from lack of oxygen does he break, both their chests heaving, as he drags his lips down her jaw and neck. Kakashi has never wanted someone like this and her heady scent of vetiver, iris and tonka urges him to savor her, _taste_ her. His teeth graze over her pulse point and the moan bubbling from her throat might just be the closest thing to a siren’s song that he’ll ever hear.

Softly do his hands wander as they push her wrap dress a little off her shoulders, standing in sharp contrast to the way his hips grind down against her. Sakura can’t decide which of his touches she likes better as she arches into all of them. Disconnecting from her neck with great reluctance Kakashi leans back to chuck his jacket off, the dress shirt and t-shirt beneath it following quickly. Sakura fiddles with the tie of her dress herself but her fingers stutter at the sight of his bare torso. Ever the keen detective, of course, he notices and gives her a million dollar smile. Thank god, she’s leaned back against the pillows, otherwise she’s sure her legs would give out on her.

“Like something you see?” Kakashi grins and the immature question, coming from someone who has the most attractive crow’s feet she’s ever seen, holds pure comedic value. Sakura is done laughing though, that’s not the sound she wants to make. Instead of answering him, she pushes him back to sit on his haunches. When he scowls at her in confusion, eyes still crinkled in amusement, she slips off the bed to stand. He follows her limbs’ movements with bated breath. One, two, she steps out of her heels. Three, four, the tie opens entirely and silk slides off her shoulders to the floor. She never wears a bra under this particular dress and the scrap of lace covering her most intimately can barely be called underwear. Five: Her string joins the rest of her garments.

Botticelli’s Venus _wishes_ she was this beautiful.

Her soft chin raises and this might be the only time she gets to look down at him when he isn’t nestled between her legs.

Sakura licks her lips and grins, “Do you?”

His heart stutters. Kakashi should be consumed with lust, delirious with desire really and he is, he is truly. But more than that he’s awestruck by her beauty. She is complete in a way that makes him see how lacking his life is.

A voice barks in his chest: _Pull yourself together, you old fool. This is a one night stand._ But he’d rather take another bullet to the chest than not make this the best damn one night stand either of them have ever head.

Shaking himself out of his trance he shifts to the edge of his bed and toes off his heavy boots, before he reaches for her. When he speaks, his voice is soft as though he’s coaxing a cat for a petting, “Come here.” His hand finds her waist gently and he pulls on her slowly.

She lets him, lets him drag her into him. Both into his charm and into the inviting circle of his arms. His hands rest on her waist and slide lower, comforting and appreciating as his lips press against her stomach right next to her bellybutton. Sakura sighs.

“You’re absolutely beautiful, you know?” He mumbles softly and leaves a soft wet kiss on her hipbone. Her mouth opens to disagree, but his teeth grazing over the same spot he just kissed turn any negatives into a sigh as her fingers find his hair. “Don’t talk back, I know better anyway.”

She tugs on his roots, he groans but she can feel all his teeth on her skin from his grin. “Arrogance isn’t very attractive officer,” she chides, but her tone is breathy and she punctuates the sentence with a sigh.

“‘M sorry,” he mumbles but Sakura is deaf from the rushing in her ears at his breath ghosting over her pearl. His hands had slipped lower onto her hips, but now it’s only one holding on and the other brushes her where she is hot and wet. “You’re dripping, Sakura.”

A moan rouses from her chest and she just nods, helpless to the way he says her name. Like they know each other, like they’re so familiar, not technical strangers that picked each other up in a dingy bar. One hand fists hard into his hair, the other clasps onto his shoulder when he tests her, humming and smiling up at her as he teases before pressing first one, then two fingers into her heat. Her breath catches in her throat before reassembling itself into a deep sigh. On instinct she draws one leg up and rests her knee on his thigh, giving him a better angle and her more freedom to rock into his hand as he’s gently beginning to curl his fingers in and out of her.

Kakashi is entirely enthralled by her, she’s so giving and eager it makes him strain against his jeans while equally his heart jumps in his chest because he only wants to hold her. Firmly he massages the round curve of her ass as he lets his thumb circle over her clit, listening for every gasp, every hitch in her breath. Technically her grip on his hair is painful as she subconsciously drags his head back, but he must say that he is glad for it. This way he gets the best angle at her face, front row seats to watch her once she cums. When Sakura only chokes out bitten off breaths between a curse and his name, he holds her through it. The hand that massaged her bottom is back at her waist, holding her steady as she shakes and rides out her orgasm against his palm.

Kakashi retracts his fingers and licks himself clean, groaning at her taste. A chuckle moves her beautiful, creamy chest and he leans his chin on her stomach, grinning as her hands run through his hair. No longer pulling and dragging, Sakura practically pets him like a dog; but he can’t deny that he likes it and a hum starts to vibrate through his ribcage. His slate grey eyes slide shut and together they stay like this for a moment, just massaging and caressing the other, until Kakashi blinks at her slowly, “Up for more?”

He speaks softly and tries to hide the way he shifts stiffly in jeans, but her keen eyes catch it anyway. All drowsiness of her afterglow flees her at just the thought of what’s causing him discomfort, it fans the embers and she’s ablaze in an instant. Smoke and spark in her eye, she cocks her head before peeling his hands off her. He frowns, a little worried, but she hasn’t given him a reason to distrust her yet, her intentions have only seen to his benefit so far. His faith is rewarded as she sinks to the space between his knees, finally grinning up at him with big eyes, “Yes. I am.”

This time it’s _his_ hand threading into _her_ hair. Tenderly first, starting by the baby hairs at her ear as she opens his belt. Slipping to the nape of her neck when she tugs him free and eventually fisting into her roots when she closes those kiss-swollen paradise pink lips around his weeping tip.

“ _Fuck_ , Sakura,” Kakashi groans, struggling to breathe as she greedily takes him into her mouth inch for inch and relaxes her throat. He loves her name. Loves how much it fits her, the way it rolls around his tongue, how easy it is to moan. She doesn’t even gag when he hits the back of her throat, drawing a guttural growl from him before she draws back up again with hollowed out cheeks.

It isn’t long that he lets himself indulge in this; he think while she bobs up and down that at this rate she’ll suck him dry in no time. As enjoyable that would be, he wants to feel her properly.

“Sakura,” he starts, raspy and so dark she moans around him. Immediately he tugs at her hair, a little harsher than intended but her throat vibrating against him, made his vision go white. Her mouth comes off him with a wet pop as her face raises up to look at him. Her eyes are so hazy and heavy lidded, it is enough to make his heart _hammer_ against his chest and his cock twitch against her hand resting at his base. “God, don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” Sakura can’t believe the effect she has on him. If she only looked at his face and body language, she’d think she’d hurt him. That he’s in agony, he looks so tense. His breaths are labored and it is only because of his achingly hard manhood cradled in her hand that she knows, he is in agony. But not from pain, but from desire, from _hunger._

_For her._

“Like sin,” it’s a little twitchy but he manages a grin as his gaze tears off her and his hand disappears in the drawer of his nightstand, retrieving a condom. Lightning fast she snatches the little package from his hands and tears it open, feeling his pleased grin bearing down on her more so than she sees it. A sigh rolls off his lips as she rolls it down his length and Sakura stands on wobbly legs. On her way up she catches his open mouth in a kiss and they both groan into it. She loses her footing as Kakashi drags her back down into the bed. While he peels himself out of his remaining clothes, she scoots back into the plush mess of pillows left behind by him in the morning. Her legs are spread and if he wasn’t locked in heated eye contact with her, he’d grow weak at the sight.

The same way they sunk down into his bed the first time, they sink down into it now. Her arms are around his neck, he’s braced on his hand and elbow on either side of her and they connect in an all consuming, deep kiss. Sakura whines into his mouth as she feels him brush her. When she feels him lining himself up, it twists and billows into a full, low moan. Kakashi burrows his face in the crook of her neck as he sinks into her slick heat. The circuit closes again.

He is the only listener to the private concert of her moans, blind with pleasure at the feeling of her, pliable and hot and pulsing around him.

“Fucking hell, you’re tight,” the words are crude but she’s never had anything murmured more softly in her ear. A jittery chuckle sneaks from her lungs, “You’re just fucking big.” At that, he chuckles too.

Neither sound has a chance to grow up into a laugh, it’s drowned in her gasps and his groans as he bottoms out and begins to move.

Kakashi is patient and his thrusts reflect that with their steady, deep pace. He isn’t running for the release, he enjoys the ride, savors the feeling of her. Every time she squeezes around him, every time he snaps his hips harder and faster it feels like taking a rest on a long journey to him. She’s fire everywhere he touches and Kakashi wants to burn.

Even if Sakura came into the bar that night, chasing nothing but a quick fuck, maybe an orgasm or two, she can’t help but adore how slow he’s taking it. How he worships her body, inside and out. Sakura gasps and sighs and moans and cries as his hips snap against hers; perfect, like a key into its lock. He fits between her thighs, circled around him, like he was poured in between them and her body molds like warm wax to his.

Slowly, steadily like the tide, his pace increases, until Kakashi drives in and out of her in a frenzy. Sakura shudders and arches into his heaving chest, trying to meet him thrust for thrust but her body is barely coherent anymore. The tension low in her stomach is on the verge of snapping, but doesn’t quite cross the line until he shifts his weight abruptly and snakes a hand down between them. He needs her to cum before him, it’s just gentlemen’s code. Her pleasure before his, ever and always.

The pressure of his thumb on her clit makes her nearly cry and her nails dig deep into his back. At the edge of her conscious is the vague realization that he’s grinning wide into her neck and then everything goes quiet. Her orgasm knocks the wind out of her like a sucker punch to the sternum and Sakura goes still before she spams under and around him. There’s a sound ringing in her ears and it takes her a while to be lucid enough to realize it’s her, crying his name against his shoulder.

“ _Oh god,_ ” Kakashi chokes on his own breath when she clamps down around him. His spine jerks and his hips stutter as she draws his own postponed orgasm from deep beneath his loins. Hearing his name sobbed hoarsely against his skin, breaks something inside him, something he didn’t know was there. It’s involuntary but not unwelcome when he responds her own name into her soft pink locks.

They gulp and grasp the damp musky air between them, while sharing strangely gentle kisses and fluttering touches until they’re settled apart beneath the sheets. Neither speaks, it hangs in the air and neither dares to give voice to it. _This isn’t what this is, this isn’t what it is about. This won’t be._

She waits for his breath to even before she flees the warmth of the covers and falls over herself to gather her clothes. Sakura is _terrified_. Not once in the six years of her _marriage_ has she felt, the way she felt while having sex with this ultimate stranger. Her hands shake as she attempts to tie her dress and suddenly she feels dizzy, hot and anxious. Her wide green eyes dart around the hall as she looks for the bathroom, finding one wooden door ajar and sharing a glimpse into her sanctuary. The door closes very softly for being so old and she releases a jittery breath before she bends down and leans her head on the cold porcelain of the sink. _Water._ She needs to cool herself down. Out of habit, Sakura strips herself of her watch and places it on the small shelf below the mirror before she fiddles open the faucet and starts to wash her hands, up to her elbows. It has the desired effect and she pats her cheeks with wet hands a couple times before drying them off. His home is too comfortable, feels too cozy and lived in for her in that headspace. She breathes deeply for a few times before starting back into the bedroom to retrieve her shoes.

Kakashi seems deeply enough asleep for her to risk sitting on the edge of the bed to pull on her heels, but as soon as she touches the second one, she hears the ruffle of sheets and a sigh.

“You’re leaving?” He asks.

Sakura swallows and nods before chancing a mild smile over her shoulder. Kakashi sits up slowly and returns the smile, sleepiness pulling at the corners of his mouth. With a deep breath, she says, “Yeah, still have to get all the way across town, remember? I’ve got work.”

The boyishness of his grin pulls at her heart strings and she has to swallow again when he speaks, soft and low and kind. “I remember,” he licks his lips and scratches the back of his neck. His hair is even more disheveled than when she first saw it and it forces her to smile. “You can shower here if you want, I don’t mind.”

“If I shower here, you’ll probably shower with me.” Sakura cocks a brow at that and gives him a pointed glance, but she’s betrayed by the upward curve of the corners of her mouth.

“Probably,” he agrees with a small laugh and she joins in.

“See, and then I’ll be late. Even if I save time by showering here. And I’m never late.”

“Alright, I get that.”

Kakashi understands. She isn’t leaving to save time and she isn’t explaining herself to him. Sakura is bidding him farewell. Who would he be, if he didn’t at least kiss her goodbye though?

He watches as she pulls on her second shoe and waits patiently until she’s facing him again to pull her into a searing kiss. His hand rests on the back of her neck yet he’s the one withdrawing when their tongues grow a little too hungry.

“Take care.”

One last kiss and Sakura’s stomach knots. It is deep, but chaste. The kind of kiss a groom and bride share to finalize their union. She feels ill, but smiles. His eyes are sad as he gifts her with a last toothy and roguish grin.

“You too.”

She stumbles over dog toys and pants as she pulls the front door shut behind her.

* * *

The second time Genma makes her bottom lip quiver, is when she lies back on his mattress. The high thread count of his sheets caresses the bare skin of her back the same way his fingers caress the tender flesh of her thighs as he peels her dress and underwear off them. That toothpick should’ve told her from the start that Genma has a bit of an oral fixation. She chides the doctor in herself for missing something so blatantly obvious, the signs were all there. It would make her laugh, if she wasn’t currently gasping for air as he presses a wet open mouthed kiss right next to her core, at the junction of her thigh and centre.

He can _feel_ her heat on his cheek. Sakura is radiating, literally as well as from desire and need and Genma doesn’t possess the endless patience of his partner. Indulgence is his favourite sin. So he doesn’t stall further, presses lingering kisses all along her womanhood and revels in her soft sighs. Her small but surprisingly strong hands shift from fisting at his sheets and he groans against her when her nails scrape along his scalp, holding onto carefully maintained brunette tresses. From the way she’s tugging at him, he can only deduce how _not_ in the mood she is to be teased. Flattening his tongue, he rewards her efforts with a broad hard lick before swirling around her bundle of nerves. Now that she doesn’t have to be quiet anymore, Sakura lets him hear her appreciation. A shiver rocks her entire body as his lips close around her clit and her back arches, choking out broken moans and squeezing her thighs around his head. _She’s so responsive._ Genma can’t help it, with how wet she is, how vocal, he snakes one of his hands down to his still far too tight jeans and pops his button fly open, down to the last one. _At least a little relief._

Sakura is suppressing the urge to buck her hips wildly when she feels his tongue dip inside her. She feels so fucking _empty_ and her hips cant upward to chase the feeling as he retracts far too soon. The fact that she knows he’s grinning even though her eyes are shut, draws a growled whine from her throat and causes her to glare at him through her lashes, “Genma, _for fuck’s sake_.”

The bastard has the audacity to lick his lips and grin as he rests his chin in his propped up hand; that his other one remains stroking her lazily doesn’t slip her mind.

“What, sweetheart? Not enough?” _Ah, so this is how he wants it? He can have that._

“Not by a long stretch, honey.”

His grin grows wider. “Oh, yeah? Want something bigger?”

Sakura has to swallow down a snort, but she rolls her eyes anyway. _Men are all the same. Dogs that need to be petted and praised._ When she sits up on her elbows to respond, she happens to catch the spark in his eye and suddenly she’s changed her mind. Maybe petting a puppy can be nice.

Pushing out her bottom lip, she licks over it, before biting down and sneaking ‘shy’ glances at him, “I know _exactly_ what I––“ But before her act can take effect, she’s cut off by her own sharp gasp as he pushes two fingers inside her dripping heat. Impossibly tight Sakura contracts around him at once and they both moan. Her voice is thin and breathless as she cries, “Oh _god._ Oh fuck, Genma— “

As her reward he pumps and curls his fingers languidly inside her, picking up his pace when his lips descend down onto her swollen bundle of nerves. As soon as the room is permeated by the sounds of her slickness and her stuttered cries, Genma grazes his teeth along her and Sakura comes undone. Like cutting the thread holding onto a weight, he releases her orgasm on her so forcefully, she can’t help but buck and jerk against his face.

By the time she’s calmed down enough to not be worried about cardiac arrest, he’s crawled up to her face and presses soft, light kisses to her hairline. Genma likes to please, women especially. Not that he’d ever admit it, but there’s a sense of joy in bringing a woman to orgasm that he can’t quite compare to anything else.

“More.” She hasn’t even fully caught her breath yet, her chest still heaves under the gentle touch of his thumb brushing over her hardened nipple, but Sakura finds herself greedy. Her actions reflect that as she tugs and tears down his jeans. It makes a moan rolls off his tongue when he’s finally freed by her nimble hands. The sound is so pretty to her ears, she strokes him a few times as he nuzzles her neck, just to hear it again. Genma is so warm, in every sense of the word. He smells like a day spent at the beach and his skin has a faint healthy tan to match, it practically radiates heat. A lover of the sun. Right in this moment Sakura wants to be the fireball in the sky.

Since her orgasm has subsided somewhat, the emptiness is back and she aches. For him - his sweet, deep kisses, tasting of cinnamon. His warm broad body, his molten chocolate eyes and especially for his thick cock, which she’s currently getting to know.

With a messy wet kiss to her temple, he slips off the bed and kicks off his jeans and boxer shorts fully before he leans to the side and jiggles open the rickety drawer of his nightstand. A plastic package rips open and Sakura simply cannot help sitting up slightly, watching him with silent anticipation as he rolls the condom over himself. What she isn’t prepared for is the softness in his darkened eyes as _he_ watches _her._

 _Oh no. No, no, no, this isn’t what we’re doing here,_ the thought rings almost panicked in the hollow of her skull and as an act of defiance, she shoots him a glare, trying her hardest to make it seem sultry instead of plain enraged. Genma isn’t impressed and the mattress dips again underneath his weight.

Just as he’s about to push her back and settle between her inviting thighs, Sakura breaks eye contact and twists onto her belly. One of his brows arches quizzically but appreciatively as he gives her space to push onto her knees. Calloused fingertips brush over her hips, lightly at first, then roughly and they pull her back against him. He’s throbbing and hard as he slides along her slick folds, coating himself and teasing her entrance every time he passes it with his tip. Sakura thinks her brain is going to melt.

“Sure you’re ready for me?” Her mouth feels dry and her thighs shake, she can’t even muster up an eye roll at his cockiness. She’s set to primal mode and grinds her hips wantonly against him with a long sigh, “Fuck, I just want to feel you as deep as possible, ok? _Please_.”

“As you wish,” he chuckles lightly against her neck, draped over her back and the ghost of his breath gives her goosebumps.

Then, he sinks into her. Agonizingly slowly and Sakura understands exactly why.

“ _Oh,_ ” she moans, cries rather, as her back arches in a perfect curve and her eyes roll back. Flush with surprise, she presses her face into his pillow, choking herself with his scent, just to muffle any more obscenely loud noises she didn’t know she could produce. If Sakura’s honest with herself, she can’t remember if she’s ever been with someone so _thick._ Luckily, Genma is a gentleman apparently because he doesn’t move, he gives her time to adjust. The only signs telling her that he’s just as taken with the feeling of her, as she is with him, is the low moan at her ear and the way his hands shake on her hips as he presses his forehead in between her shoulder blades.

For a moment they both simply pant, then a spark flares to life deep inside her loins. Something dark and animalistic and she rolls her hips once against him before he meets her with his own slow but hard thrust. It’s his turn to sigh and she purrs in answer, urging him on further when his steady pace just won’t catch up with the coil tightening in her belly.

Throwing him a heavy lidded gaze over her shoulder, she braces herself with one hand against his bed frame, before breathing out, “I’m not made of glass, you won’t break me.” The dirty grin he gives her makes her almost regret that statement. At once he picks up the momentum and his hips snap faster and harder against hers, drawing hard gasps and throaty moans from both of them. Even if he tried, Genma couldn’t keep his wits about him. Not with her. Sure, he’s bedded a number of women in his life time — beautiful, smart, sexy women but never someone like her. She appeals to a part of him, that he didn’t even know existed and the way she tightens around him, gives him reason to believe this might just be a dream. He would even be fine with that, as long as he gets to enjoy this to the very end.

As if on cue, Sakura flutters around him and her hands grasp at nothing. She really had all intentions of alerting him to her orgasm, but her tongue can’t remember how to form words before the tide breaks. He’s washed ashore soon after her, a stuttered jerk of his hips and his growled moan of release threads into her rose coloured hair.

All her joints and muscles shake and Genma doesn’t bother her with his weight long. Before he’s caught his breath he slips out of her and falls heavily on his back to her side. A not exactly dignified but heartfelt whine escapes her at his loss, drawing a tired smile to his flushed face. With a little effort she’s shuffling her knees and plans on rolling on her side as well, but one strong hand catches her around her waist and draws her against his chest.

This isn’t her style, Sakura doesn’t cuddle anymore really. Doesn’t allow herself that trickery of hormones that her body tries to push on her after being held to a warm body. The afterglow is kind of frying her rationality though and _god, does this feel nice._

A content sigh sneaks from her lips and she can feel his lips grin at the junction of her neck and shoulder.

“Enjoy yourself?”

No answer, then Sakura laughs. She can’t help it. He turns her body to jelly, makes her cum twice and yet, he still asks like a frat boy if he was good.

All sorts of snarky responses sit at the tip of her tongue, ready to knock him down a peg, but none of them push past her teeth. Instead she nods, only making sure he can see her eye roll, before she whispers, “yeah, I did.”

“Good,” Genma murmurs into the peachfuzz at the nape of her neck, sleepiness already rounding out the syllables. Not letting go of her, he drags the soft covers over them and Sakura has to immediately swallow a clump of anxiety back down into her stomach.

She doesn’t sleep over, _her_ bed is for sleeping. She has work, she needs to leave.

Unsure how to go from here, she risks a glance at the clock first before she tries to twist around to wrestle herself from his grip but she stops when she sees him. His eyes are closed already and she can feel his breath evening against her back. Maybe she can stay, at least until he’s asleep.

Sakura waits for thirty minutes, almost drifting off herself once or twice as his heart beats a lullaby against her spine. When she’s sure he’s pretty much dead to the world, she works his fingers lose and rolls off the bed, halting briefly and listening for him to rouse. But all she hears is the ruffle of the sheets as he nuzzles deeper into them.

Practiced and quick, Sakura dresses and only stops to scribble a quick note, to be left on his nightstand.

_‘that was fun, text me x’_

Her number scrawled along the bottom edge of the back of the receipt she found on his coffee table.

Gingerly she places it next to the alarm clock, this is unusual for her as it is and Sakura swings somewhere between surprise and shock, when she finds herself pressing a soft kiss to his temple.

Heels in hand, she pulls the front door shut behind her.

* * *

  
She met Kakashi on Saturday and Genma on Wednesday. Come Friday, Sakura can’t seem to keep track of her time anymore. She forgot her watch. _But where?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who caught my little hint?


	4. miss something?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry you guys, I really wanted to have this finished by yesterday, but since I decided to pickle myself like a martini olive in gin and wine all weekend I was literally on my deathbed yesterday
> 
> so I bring forth: this. tell me what you think because I don’t know how I’m feeling

_Friday, 10:03AM_

Impatience rubs its teeth against his temples as Genma taps the steering wheel of the dented patrol car, parked at the back of the precinct, while he waits for his partner. The drum of his fingers comes angry at first, then softens to be on beat as the CD shuffles and begins anew. His second hand joins in on the center of the wheel after the initial iconic chords and the officer hums softly under his breath, _“She’s got a smile that it seems to me, reminds me_ – There, you fucking are!”

The door claps shut with a creak as his partner falls into the seat beside him. The exasperation rolls off Genma like storm clouds down the glaciers. Akin to a peace offering, a lukewarm paper coffee cup is pressed appeasingly into the hand that was just imitating the song’s beat. But Genma glowers, staring the other man down scrutinizingly.

All he’s met with is a confused twitch of a brow and an uncharacteristic grin full of white teeth, “What?”

“First of all, do you know how late it is? Do you even _own_ a fucking watch? I swear to god,” Agitated with the situation, his partner and the time Genma curses and shakes his head, resigning at last as he rests his forehead on the wheel. They’ve had this exact conversation one million too many times, and if he’s honest, he knows that his partner is not going to learn his lesson if he hasn’t in the past thirty-eight years of his life. So he sighs deep and dismissively instead of lecturing to the deaf. The coffee - which is not how he takes it, way too sugary and no milk - disappears down his throat in two big gulps, before the cup is flung behind the seat and he’s back to scowling at his partner. His _still_ grinning partner. _The hell?_

“Are you sick?” Genma narrows his eyes at the other man, scanning him up and down from the unruly mess of hair over the beat up army jacket down to the washed out blue jeans, and back to his face and the strangely cheery expression. It tugs on his mouth and crinkles his eyes. While it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, he can’t help suspicion rise like bile in his throat. Eventually a thought sneaks it’s way into his investigation and girlishly pretty eyes grow round as saucers, “Oh god. Are you dying?”

“ _What._ ”

“It’s _weird_ , man. I can’t remember seeing you grin like this in,” He gesticulates, wracking his brain as he’s looking for an appropriate time frame, “well, _ever_.”

Said grin vanishes instantly as Kakashi pinches the bridge of his nose, frowning in deep annoyance. This feeling is much more familiar to him in Genma’s presence than wanting to do nice things for him. Like bringing him someone else’s coffee.

Defeated, he lets out a deep sigh and his partner takes this as the cue to start the car. _Conversation over_. With a stutter the engine howls to life and the radio turns up at the spike of electric current, as Genma slings his arm around the passenger seat to get a better view through the back window. The broad heel of his palm pushes the wheel left and right while he backs out and maneuvers the car out of the lot. After threading deliberately aggressively into the choked up traffic of Konoha’s main road, they drive the first stretch of the way to the crime scene in mostly silence. Numerous pissed off texts blowing up his phone earlier that day, had already filled Kakashi in on most of the case’s details. Armed robbery of a convenience store in the early hours of the morning, which left behind no perpetrator but one fatality and another victim critically injured.

As they pull around a corner, Kakashi rummages through the glovebox of the beat up vehicle he shares with the other detective, finding purchase in the mostly empty pack of cigarettes squeezed behind a box of cookies as old as the car, crumpled up receipts and a broken taser. Off to his side Genma seems to have brushed off his rage, soothed by the CD on repeat and Kakashi can see him out of the corner of his eye, now silently mouthing along to _Paradise City._ A real old school cop image he makes. With the dark aviators, the lopsided grin on his face and elbow hanging out the open window as they listen to hard rock. _Nothing ever really changes._ Kakashi thinks absently, creating an overlay in his mind with the same exact image Genma made on their first day as partners.

Unceremoniously Kakashi shakes off all sentimentality and lights a mildly bent cigarette, ignoring Genma’s protest and bark to roll down the fucking window all the way. Following a long inhale and a silent pause, he exhales lastly, “Remember that hellcat I met the other week? That I thought I wasn’t gonna see again?”

The light turns red and Genma turns to his partner with the dirtiest smirk and the brightest twinkle in his eye. _Yeah,_ nothing _changes in twenty years really._

“Of course I remember.”

How could he not? Kakashi is _such_ a selectively private guy, that it wouldn’t be a shock to find out he’s been married all this time. It is only due to the almost two decades they’ve spent together as partners that Genma knows better. Which made the occurrence of his partner talking about a woman not any less exciting. In the past, in their twenties, it used to bother Genma that Kakashi would never join in on classic guy talk; that he was the only one sharing and practically talking against a wall even if his partner made his respectful comments. Thinking back now, they had gone out countless times together and Genma _had_ seen Kakashi leave with women but the amount of times he received a name to the face in the days after, he could count on one hand.

How the white haired detective spoke about this woman though? The brunette thought he might’ve had a stroke. Not once in all their time together, had he been so forthcoming. While still not describing her physically (as he _never_ did, to Genma’s dismay), for Kakashi’s standards, he was practically singing praises on the mystery woman.

 _Speaking of amazing women,_ Genma’s head is flooded at once with pictures of jade eyes and blush colored curls.

“You know, funny you should say that. I went out for a beer after work on Wednesday and I picked up a literal _angel._ ” Chocolate eyes glaze over and one of his brows shoots up briefly, “Well, on first glance. Acted like a right sinner when it came down to it.” He bites down on his thumb’s fingernail and cocks his head as he recalls the way Sakura bent over for him, threatening to get lost in the memory. A sharp blow of knuckles against his shoulder does him the favor of dragging him right back to the present though.

“How do we always land on who you tricked into bed?” Annoyance colours Kakashi’s baritone as he slaps Genma over the back of the head for good measure.

“Hey, _she_ jumped _me_ in that bathroom!“ The accused protests with an over exaggerated shrug, but waves one hand in a placating manner when he catches Kakashi’s pointed glare, “Right, sorry. You were saying?”

The senior officer rolls his dark eyes but continues after a drag of his cigarette, “Well, with how she said goodbye I thought I’d seen the last of her, right?”

Genma nods and adds, “And you kicked yourself for not getting her number, yeah yeah, get to the point.”

Setting his jaw, Kakashi turns his gaze off Genma and taps ash off his cigarette out the rolled down window.

“I found her watch in my bathroom this morning. Looks expensive and kind of old, she _has_ to come back for that.”

Pumping the brakes, Genma slows and with a rumble they pull up on the curb behind the van of the forensics department. The narrow side street is littered with cops and patrol cars, the small convenience store on the corner a busted up shell of what it used to be. Hands on the key in the ignition, Genma waits for the song to come to its end before he kills the engine. “I’m gonna tell Yamato that you’re the reason we’re this late.”

Kakashi is already outside of the car but bends back down into it with a hand on the edge of the door, dragging on the burnt out remnants of his cigarette before he coughs, “Snitch.”

“ _Informant_ ,” Genma corrects and steps out of the car, slamming the door shut before he locks it. “And what if she doesn’t come back for it?”

Kakashi shrugs before shoving his hands in his pockets as his heel grinds the cigarette butt into the curb. He seems to pause. Then a smug grin forms eventually as they head towards the bustle of colleagues swarming around the crime scene, “I know where she works.”

* * *

_  
Friday 02:38PM_

Nestled deep into the right corner of the threadbare couch in the nurses’ lounge, Sakura rubs at the clunky wristband of the sports watch she’s wearing. Unseeing of the time, her fingernail catches over and over on the ridges of the plastic links while she stares practical daggers at it. Mentally she’s far away, backward in time actually. She’s going over her week exactly, starting from last Friday on because she remembers distinctly putting on the watch, the one she’s currently missing, before meeting Hinata and Tenten over dinner. _What about Saturday?_ She had it before her morning shift and she also recalls checking it at the bar. And then?

 _Oh._ Her stomach flips and her belly pulls tight at the shiver running down her spine. _Right, then_ that _happened._ He _happened._ But this isn’t the right environment to think of something like this. Absolutely not the right place to remember so viscerally. At once all memories are banished, locked in a box in her head and the dull throb of a headache murmurs instantly at the base of her skull. _Back to track._ When she resumes her previous thoughts though, she doesn’t continue with Sunday in her timeline. Unprompted her mind jumps from unruly silvery white to glossy, smooth brunette. Sakura resists letting her eyes flutter shut as she recalls Genma and everything surrounding him. His warmth, the softness of his sheets, the scent of him on his pillows, in her hair, clinging to her clothes. His gorgeous brown eyes, the laugh lines around his talented mouth. His quaint apartment, his bedroom. His hands, his shoulders, his— _Not here. Not now._

Just in time, _before_ heat can pool too unbearably between her thighs, she realises something. She didn’t have her watch with Genma. Sakura had to look at his alarm over and over to determine whether she was still within her time or whether she needed to leave. So, she lost it somewhere between Saturday and Wednesday.

Before she gets a chance to dive back into her memory databank, Sakura is flicked sharply in between her brows. The brief flash of pain along with her own flinch, yanks her up to the surface.

“What the _fuck_?”

“Earth to fucking Forehead! Sakura, you were supposed to meet me for lunch over an hour ago!” A tall blonde in a ruffled chiffon blouse and tight burgundy pencil skirt towers over Sakura’s sitting form, spitting fire and gall. Her blue eyes are practically burning down at her in a withering stare. _Blue_ is _the warmest colour._ Her full lips press into a thin line as she rests her hands on her hips. “I thought you were maybe caught up in surgery, but no, I find you here, glaring at your wrist like a lunatic.”

“Should a psychiatrist use the word lunatic?” Sakura quips, finally drawn out of the fog of her trance as she swings her legs over the edge of the couch. The remark only earns her a less than gentle slap against the side of her head.

“Shut the fuck up and tell me why you stood me up,” As abrasive as the words are, they lack bark. Ino drops heavily into the opened up space next to her friend and nudges her with her elbow. Hard. Sakura doesn’t know how Temari isn’t constantly black and blue. Then again Ino never took off the gloves with Sakura. Not in the gym, not at work, not in private. The only time Ino handled Sakura gently was when she told her Sasuke had cheated. It was so foreign and unsettling, Sakura had cried even harder as Ino brushed her hands over her hair. Maybe it’s better this way, maybe Ino should reserve her gentle touches for Temari only.

Sucking on her cheek, Sakura scowls down one last time at her watch before her shoulders sag and she lets her head fall back. “My watch is gone.”

“What do you mean ‘gone’?” Ino shoots back at once, picking up Sakura’s wrist and shaking it loosely. “It’s right here, you idiot. You stood me up over it.”

The doctor rolls her eyes and this time it’s her shoving the blonde. “Not that one. My grandmother’s.” A long beat of silence before her voice comes back defiantly, “Would you drop it? You’ve stood me up plenty of times. Besides, I actually was in surgery this morning!”

“You never wear that one to work. You sure it isn’t at home?” Ino furrows her brows. It’s a feeble attempt, devoid of conviction since she’s well aware of how tidy Sakura is. Things don’t really get misplaced in her home.

Sakura draws one leg back up to her chest. She feels restless and needs an anchor. Leaning her cheek on her knee, green eyes turn to look at her best friend, “Yeah, I’m sure. I lost it somewhere between Saturday and Wednesday. I mean, I didn’t _lose_ lose it.” Sakura grins but Ino scowls. She’s not in the mood for riddles and not catching her cryptic drift, even when the surgeon raises her brows suggestively.

“What.” The blonde deadpans with a blank stare.

“What I’m trying to say, is that I forgot it somewhere. At _someone’s_ home,” Sakura’s green eyes narrow pointedly as she searches Ino’s bright blues expectantly. Her heart thumps once, twice, three times in the silence between them. Finally Ino’s eyes widen and shine with recognition.

“ _Oh._ Had an eventful week now, did we, Doctor Haruno?” Smoke and pride colour the low tones tease, her blonde head dipped back to give Sakura a knowing glance. Both as a psychiatrist and as her best friend, Ino has stood by Sakura’s side for the past couple years and watched her fall and rebuild.

Sasuke broke something inside Sakura and Ino still needs to keep her distance to him for fear of setting him on fire, if given the chance. Even if she wanted to, the blonde can’t fault her best friend for catching up on missed experiences due to marrying her high school sweetheart. A good lay is the very least of what Sakura deserves after all the heartache. Growing from a softhearted teenage girl, over a cheated, burnt married woman to a confident, alluring divorcée takes guts. Guts Sakura didn’t always have, she’s earned them by eating her pain alive. Little do both women know though, that the fruits of her labor currently are brunette and silver haired and may hold more poison than sweetness.

“You could say that. They’re both cops,” her smirk grows wide. Ino feels giddy immediately and jumps as she twists in her seat, ready to gossip and gush. “I met Kakashi on Saturday. Actually, I came onto him. I don’t know what got over me, he’s just…” Sakura bites her lip and sits up straight. How do you describe someone that both scared the living hell out of you, yet made you feel like you were a goddess in the flesh? She stumbles over her words as she recounts the week to Ino, keeping her descriptions on both men descriptive, but concise and not too emotional. If she doesn’t think about it too hard, it stays casual. In that same vein, she hasn’t replied to Genma’s first text yet. He’d shot her a suggestive _‘wanna have fun again?’_ this morning. She saved his number under _‘officer silver tongue’_ , with all his pick up lines and sweet talk and total oral fixation, it only seemed appropriate.

To be quite honest, she’d already dismissed him when he hadn’t texted yesterday, but the the message reached her right before her first patient came in. A young woman, who got shot by her boyfriend at a convenience store around the corner. Sakura couldn’t help but think, as she was wrist deep in the girl’s ribcage, if not even love can shield you from a bullet to the chest, why even bother?

“So, why did you leave Genma your number but not Kakashi?”

_Fuck Ino and her psychiatrist slash Jedi mind tricks._

Sakura shrugs dismissely and picks at her immaculate cuticles, “Don’t know, just didn’t think about it, I guess.” She swallows down the bile and vomit at her own lie. Ino knows and she won’t meet her eye. He made her practically hyperventilate by being tender with her, how messed up is that? Suddenly she stills before focusing back on Ino. “I know where my watch is.”

* * *

_  
Friday, 06:54PM_

Wearing heels to come here, is arguably one of the worst choices Sakura made all week. All month maybe. Her knees feel weak and wobbly and if she breaks an ankle tonight, it wouldn’t be a surprise. In daylight the road of his home looks different and now worry about not finding the house again rolls down her spine like ice. She stalks down the dirty sidewalk, suppressing a gag and the urge to turn straight around. Fight or flight kicking in further with every step and her heart hammers with the spike of adrenaline.

The closer she draws to the end of the street, the more the area begins to feel familiar. It is only when she sees a beat up cop car with ragged dice hanging from the mirror that she realises the house she’s stopped in front of, she’s entered twice. Leaned twice against the door frame of the red front door while a handsome stranger unlocked it, watching him struggle not to let his hands wander her form.

 _Just my luck_ , Sakura thinks with a huff and a deep exhale, before wiping the nervous sweat off her brow. As she ascends the stone steps, she’s feeling weaker by the moment, now suddenly nervous she might meet Genma in the stairwell. Not that she has anything to be ashamed about, they were both one night stands and she isn’t even back there to do anything with Kakashi. Right? Right, Sakura just wants her watch back. _Just that._

Blankly she stares at the names next to the ringers, realizing that she doesn’t even know his last name. Her eyes flit over the letters until they catch onto the one reading ‘K. Hatake’. It’s worth a shot and she presses it long, waiting even longer when there is no response.

Now her options are slim. Either she rings through the rest of the names, terrorizes his neighbours and hopes one person opens to her, or she leaves. Maybe tries another day? Mildly helpless Sakura looks around herself, up and down the road and her eyes ends up hanging onto the patrol car parked right out front. Technically, she could text Genma to open up to her, if he’s home. But she still hasn’t answered to his initial text and if he actually does her the favor, then she’ll have to explain all of this and that sounds even more like a migraine. Since none of the given options are very attractive to her, and the situation doesn’t seem to get better, Sakura groans and sags with her back against the door. She yelps and stumbles when it gives. _Safe neighborhood this is, huh?_

The thought comes and goes as she recovers and slips into the building, remembering vaguely that Kakashi lived higher up. There was a plant on the landing before they got to his door, she recalls because they almost knocked it over in their thinly veiled race up the stairs.

On determined, rigid legs Sakura begins to climb and as she passes a blue door on the second floor her stomach lurks and her cheeks burn. Technically there is no reason to feel shame, even if they are neighbors, there’s no guarantee that they know each other. Even if they do, they might only be coworkers. And if not, well–

Gripping the handrail tight, Sakura stops halfway up the steps. She’s dizzy and her mind is running at a million miles a minute.

_For God’s sake, Haruno. You didn’t promise either of them to even see them again! Stop fretting over nothing, you’re not mother Theresa, you owe no one fucking anything!_

Her heart is jumping around in her chest and her stomach sticks to her lungs like it’s trying to crawl up her throat. She’s worked her soul raw to come to peace over the past year, two men who happen to live in the same building and work at the same place aren’t going to shatter that. She’s gonna get her watch and text Genma as soon as she’s out of here.

The plant on the landing strokes her ankles with its soft fanned leaves when she passes it and the touch spreads goosebumps over her whole body. Sakura forces to keep her lungs working when her eyes fall on the dark grey door she saw last before she pushed Kakashi roughly against it. Her knuckles rap hard against the wood, counteracting their jitter with brute force. First there’s no sound at all, then she can hear movement. It’s faint and light, and with a sigh, she realises that the scratch of nails on the floor belongs to the owner of the dog toys she leapt over last week. Kakashi isn’t home.

* * *

_  
Friday, 07:21PM_

He fiddles with his keys in his pocket, the brown paper bag full of groceries perched on his thigh and cradled in his arm, when his eyes fall on the light pink business card tugged between the frame and door to his apartment. Oh, he _totally_ earns the title of best detective in the precinct.

It falls to the floor as the lock clicks back and the door swings open. Dutifully Kakashi places the bag on the kitchen counter and gives the pug following on his heel a scratch between the ears, before he picks it up. His heart shouldn’t be beating so hard against his sternum, but it does and he releases a breath in a chuckle, when he reads her neat handwriting:

_I left my watch._

Below, her business number is scratched out and her private number squeezed along the bottom of the thick cardboard. He grins.

* * *

_  
Saturday 01:11AM_

The last time Kakashi sent anything resembling a dick pic even remotely was when phone pictures were as sharp as hieroglyphs. And he took it in a dark bar bathroom. Whoever the girl on the receiving end was, probably had no idea what she was even looking at.

Sakura knows _exactly_ what she’s looking at. She’s received and sent riskier photos herself, but it doesn’t make her gasp any less when she opens it.

_**01:11AM, unknown number:** miss this?_

The attached picture shows her watch, held by his hand above his lap. He’s stretched out on the couch, seemingly lounging, judging by the background and the light grey sweatpants sitting low on his hips. Sakura’s breath hitches and she could sweat and pant herself at the clear outline catching her eye beneath his hand. With shaky fingers she saves his number and bites her lip as she texts back.

_**01:13AM, doctor sakura:** you or the watch?_

_**01:14AM, officer silver fox:** you tell me_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> genma is a big guns n roses fan (like myself) because they’re romantic af and you can’t change my mind


	5. would that i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter kind of fried me and some parts of the end aren’t edited yet, I might go back in tomorrow to do that but I have 0 patience
> 
> I was listening to hozier a lot this week and just tone wise I find that kakashi is very much the debut album whereas genma practically screams wasteland to me. do yourself a favor and listen to ‘would that I’ after reading this chapter. It’s cryptic as hell but the mood is very in line with how I felt the muse for genma/sakura in this chapter.
> 
> enjoy and tell me what you think as always x

_**01:14AM, doctor sakura:** do you always lounge without underwear?_

_**01:15AM, officer silver fox:** no i prefer being naked_

  
The phone is chucked halfway across the couch as Kakashi covers his eyes with his palm and pinches the bridge of his nose. He can’t believe he just typed that. Actually, he can’t believe that he even sent that picture in the first place; sexting is so _not_ his thing. Has never been, might never be. But Sakura seems to make him do things he hasn’t though to do in a long time. Like she’s the spring breathing life into the set winter of his sad daily routine.

A startlingly harsh _ping!_ muffled from the cushions derails his train of thought and he debates whether to pick up or leave the device for a long breath.

He picks it up.

_**01:19AM, doctor haruno:** funny, me too._

  
**picture attached**

  
A groan bursts forth from his chest as his thumb taps the screen to open the picture in full. As anything Sakura does, it’s dirty but tasteful. Taken from above, he can see the naked milky curve of half her body, stretching like a stream through the landscape of her bed. Starting from the lake that is the underside of her breast at the top of the frame, over the pinched indentation, the rushing river, of her waist and the tear drop pond of her beautiful navel, lower to the round swish and swell of her hip down to the hill of her upper thigh at the bottom. As implied, she _is_ in fact naked, there is no panty, no string, in sight, but her white sheets are delicately crumpled over the valley of her intimates, keeping the photo alluring but not lewd.

Kakashi can’t believe his luck. How did anyone meet such a woman? How did he meet someone like her?

The joggers low on his hips are becoming decidedly less loose as he continues to look at the snapshot, only broken out of the spell by a new ping and a new message popping up at the edge of the screen.

_**01:24AM, doctor haruno:** cat got your tongue, officer?_

He didn’t realise how long he was just staring at the photo, at this _gift_ while forcefully keeping his hands primly above the elastic waist band. Inexplicably he waits for her approval. For a sort of ‘go ahead, it’s for you’. But it doesn’t come and he puffs out his chest, deciding to be bold.

_**  
01:26AM, officer silver fox:** sorry, got a hard time concentrating when your blood is rushing elsewhere_

_**01:26AM, doctor haruno:** am i making you hard?_

She’s sin. Unflinching and daring and hungry and beguiling. How addictive.

His hands move faster than his head can catch up. This usually happens with his mouth too, so he shouldn’t be surprised, really. He still is after hitting _send_ on his reply though.

_**  
01:27AM, officer silver fox:** come over and find out_

With a frown Sakura bites down on her lip. Truth is, she would love to come over right now and find out exactly how much just that photo affected him. And how much more the real thing would, but there’s a part of her that needs preparation to face Kakashi. A part that’s both exhilarated and terrified by him.

Him and his endless depths that she seems to know to the bottom. That make her gasp and scramble for air. Him and his heart that she feels familiar with but doesn’t understand why. That makes her own beat harder, pump viciously and frantically. Him and his stupidly cozy place. The place that felt like home on her first time visiting.

Spontaneity with him translates to brutal fear and she’s always hated being scared. A glance at the clunky watch she wore that day, perched on her night stand, gives her an easy out. It’s late. Very late and just like last weekend, _she has work._  
Although, she kind of always does, but that thought is pushed aside quick. Facts don’t mix well with excuses. For tonight, the reasoning is easy enough and since it baits itself as a solution _again_ , it has to be divine intervention with such a coincidence. (Or so she tells herself.) Without hesitating, Sakura bites.

_**  
01:28AM, doctor sakura:** would love to come_

_**01:28AM, doctor sakura:** sorry, fingers too fast. would love to come over, i mean. but i can’t. i actually should get off and sleep_

_**01:29AM, doctor sakura:** ***off the PHONE. geez_

_**01:29AM, officer silver fox:** ever heard of a freudian slip, doc?_

_**01:30AM, officer silver fox:** i think you’re slipping_

Her texts make him chuckle even as he still resists the urge to palm himself through the sweatpants. The thought of her getting herself off on her own is a mouth watering image in his head, only coloured in by the reality that he’s the one she’d think about in this moment. Ultimately, he isn’t stupid though. As flirty as her texts may be, Kakashi knows how to read between the lines. It’s one of his most valuable skills, both in private and as detective.

She’s turning him down and he can’t help but feel a little disappointed as the minute ticks by and the three little dots don’t appear on her side again.

_**01:32AM, officer silver fox:** what about your watch though?_

The text stares up at her angrily, blue and bright. In answer, Sakura glares at the sports watch again and reopens his first image. Just at the mere sight of his _outline_ is she overwhelmed with craving. Exactly the way he is there. Like a sweet tooth on your period, he makes her ache and writhe between her clean white pillows. Her fingers almost slip beneath the barrier of sheets before her hand tilts slightly too far and the whole picture rotates. Since its at the forefront of the image really, her eyes focus on her silver watch in his palm again instead of the appealing background and she sighs heavily.

Eventually her thumbs fly across the small keyboard again, remembering now that it is the only reason they are even having this conversation.

_**01:34AM, doctor haruno:** I’m picking it up. Monday? At 8?_

_**01:34AM, officer silver fox:** I could bring it to you. Saturday or sunday_

_Technically_ , Sakura could pick it up herself. Saturday even.

Going through her mental calendar, she taps the back button on her messages mindlessly and lands back on the overview of all her conversations. Right below Kakashi’s pseudonym is another almost identical name in her phonebook and history. It practically sears on the lit up screen.

Tomorrow (or tonight?) she’s meeting Genma again. They texted all day sporadically, flirtily, and agreed to have a repeat of Wednesday. A booty call and nothing more truly, but he invited her into his home and she accepted readily.

It would be convenient, really to just pick up the watch right after. Or before. No one would have to make the journey across town unnecessarily and if they do happen to know each other, it would lay everything bare. She’d play with open cards. If they can’t handle that, then she doesn’t want to handle them, right? _Right._

As she taps back into Kakashi’s conversation, she frowns. Something — a feeling in her gut between nausea and emptiness — keeps her from spilling now though and Sakura waits a long moment, thumbs hovering. Then she pulls her cards closer to her chest.

_**01:36AM, doctor haruno:** i’m not home tomorrow. sunday is fine. afternoon? i’ll text you the address then_

Sakura doesn’t wait for a reply. Her heartbeat races and the phone feels more and more like hot lead in her hands.

_**01:36AM, doctor haruno:** goodnight, take care of yourself ;) x_

It’s supposed to sound suggestive, but Kakashi is devoid of all arousal. Even over text her tone changed feasibly and his brows knit together close. He knows exactly what she’s saying. Or at least he has a hunch. Maybe she’s just going out with friends tomorrow, maybe she’s seeing family, but more likely, she’s seeing someone else. Even if he is old enough to know that he can’t fault her for it in any scenario, it stings a little anyway.

If only he knew how close to home his hunch hits.

_**01:40AM, officer silver fox:** goodnight sakura. see you sunday_

* * *

_Music and rhythm collide with potions and lotions and dance with silk and organza._

The last time she got ready in this manner, taking her time and blasting her playlist as she lathers herself up in the shower, was the evening of her six year marriage anniversary. It feels like an eternity ago now.

Working overtime at the hospital had made her feel grubby and gross and less than human, much less a woman. Stripping from her scrubs and eyeing her tired face in the mirror she couldn’t fathom being desirable and alluring tonight. But Sakura, wrapped in a cocoon of self deprecation and consistent worry, thought to herself that she hadn’t been a very devoting wife. That her mother would scoff at how offhandedly she had treated her hard working husband the few times a week they met at home, like strangers at a train station. Since shame burns much more ugly and fervent than the heaviness of exhaustion can drag on limbs, she felt her energy reserves kick in. So, dutifully, _like a good wife_ , she began to polish and pimp, to show her husband just what he was missing.

Her mothers voice hissed inside her head,

 _He is not missing anything, Sakura. You are_ withholding _from the poor man._

Grinding her jaw and fighting hot tears, she set to work.

Uchiha Sakura smoothed her rough skin with sugar scrubs and body butters and bathed herself in her husband’s favourite perfume. An androgynous scent of white musk, orange blossom and ginger. Uchiha Sakura shaved herself like a hooker from practically head to toe and forced her lithe frame into lingerie that was even more uncomfortable than the stringy piece looked, before hiding it under a prim burnt umber dress. The orangey hue was her husband’s favourite colour on her. Uchiha Sakura laughed at her his dry jokes over the dinner table of the high class restaurant that they devoured oysters and kobe in. She smiled and pretended to be overjoyed over the diamond necklace he gifted her, even though it would blend in with the five others she received throughout the years. Uchiha Sakura even faked her orgasm believably for him when her undevoted, steady husband finally deigned to sleep with her after a months long dry spell. It was their anniversary, after all.

Uchiha Sasuke told her then in the twilight past midnight that he was having an affair with his partner at the firm.

The memory grabs her by the throat like a vice when she thumbs through her underwear drawer that Saturday noon. Blood thunders in her ears loud and roiling like a river immediately and her hands shake as she drags on a smooth, dark cotton thong. It is pretty, but nothing as extravagant as what she’s worn the past year on the prowl. Leaning to the solid dresser, Sakura swallows her urge to vomit and shrugs. If everything goes according to plan, he won’t look long at her underwear anyway. Lingerie is for your broken heart and ungrateful husbands, not booty calls with soft brown eyes that will fuck you til you cry.

Dancing to old school girl bands and having a couple shots of whiskey before brushing her teeth helped the anxiety, the rage and the nausea before she left the house. Now that she stands in front of the brick apartment building with the red door that houses her newest acquaintances though, they all come rushing back, hitting her like a freight train between the shoulder blades. The buzzer jerks her heart like a defibrillator and she falls more against the door than she consciously pushes it open.

Step for step up the wooden stairs, a smell envelops her. It’s spicy and comforting and Sakura finds her mouth watering, as the warm scent of someone’s delicious dinner dispels her anxiety over meeting Kakashi in the staircase. It’s a valid concern and every time she thought about it on the ride here, her stomach started to flip and jerk. She spares no further thought to it however, when she rounds the first landing and sees the blue door to Genma’s apartment ajar, but he isn’t waiting for her.

While it may be the first time that she’s seeing someone for a second time, in _his_ home at that, Sakura knows that this isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Her brows knit together in a frown and regret starts to crawl up her spine. Insecurity overwhelms her as the realisation sets in that she has no idea how this is going to go over at all. All she had been thinking about prior was avoiding his neighbour (and possible coworker) and, well, the sex. Not the in between or how they were going to get there. Maybe she should’ve had more than two shots. Maybe they’ll just get right down to it?

 _Oh shit, what are you doing, Sakura?_ She chastises herself inwardly and almost turns around. But her stubbornness prevails and she continues to take the last few stairs to his apartment, hearing the clatter of metal coming from his open door. Just as she’s about to approach and lift her knuckles to knock and make him aware of her, she hears his deep baritone curse over the faint music in the background. Then heavy steps and he’s swinging the door open wide. Oh yeah, this was definitely a _good_ decision.

The same scent permeating the stairwell slams her in the face with the gust of air he created by swinging the door open quickly. If this alone didn’t suck her right in, the way he looks in that moment would just do the rest. The glossy brown tresses he had styled so effortlessly last time look disheveled now, like he had just haphazardly brushed them back to keep them out of his face. It does a miserable job at that, all they do, is fall gorgeously back into his warm eyes as he shoots her a wide crooked grin. If it weren’t for the ridiculous tooth pick in his mouth, Sakura might just swoon. Her eyes flit over him for a split second, taking in the dark green long sleeved shirt and notes how wonderfully it accentuates his broad shoulders and strong forearms with its sleeves rolled up.

Somewhat frozen in motion Sakura realises once more that she actually has no idea what happens from here. Is she supposed to kiss him? Hug? Just shake hands? Take off her clothes? This is her private circle of hell and it shows.

She gawks and forces her knees forward, jerking out a weak, “Hi.”

Genma is kind though. He’s comfort in a person and so he makes it easy for her, just like last time.

“Hi,” he responds softly. With one practiced move he removes the toothpick from his mouth and pulls Sakura inside by her waist. The door clicks shut as he catches her in a knee weakening kiss. A deep, passionate _Hello_ of sorts.

When she seems to catch up, he’s already pulled away and walks backwards down the hall to a room on the right. An apologetic grin crinkles his eyes. “Sorry, got something burning over. I’ll be right with you! Take off your shoes, make yourself at home please.”

 _Is he_ cooking _?_ Sakura sways where she stands in the tidy entrance area and has to press a hand to the wall for stability while stepping out of her shoes.

As she hangs up her jacket and begins to pad after him on soft soles, the wheels in her head turn so rapidly they might rotate off their hinges. A thought strikes her like lightning and she stops dead in her tracks. Spine straight as a ramrod, her breathing grows shallow. _Oh no. Does he think this is a date?_

In inexplicable sudden panic her eyes grow wide in a frenzy and her heart hammers. It stutters when his pretty form leans out of the kitchen to see if she’s coming, and Genma finds her staring back at him like a deer in headlights.

“Do you want a dr— Are you alright?” He chuckles, but the confusion is evident in the furrow of his brows. Before he can step out of the kitchen, Sakura scrambles at gathering her bearings. Applying her will of iron, she dominates her body into forced ease, grinning brightly at him as she crosses the last few paces between them.

“Of course. I’d love a drink!” She replies eventually, giving a small laugh as she pats his upper arm and peeks around him into the kitchen.

It’s a clean space, seemingly minimalistic but lived in, kind of like the rest of his place from what she’s seen and remembers. There are indeed a pot and pan that both bubble and steam on the stove and it doesn’t take a culinary genius to figure out that the delicious smell originated here. Now that she leans against the doorframe and peers curiously over to the pots, Genma has retreated further into the room. His studious eyes never leave her as he swings open a cabinet and produces two wine glasses and an opened bottle of red.

Warily like a cat, Sakura stalks over to the dish being cooked. While forcing herself to seem casual, the officer reads her like an open book. Her body language is rigid at best, robotic at worst and he can’t help but find her very young in that moment.

His hand presses into the small of her back as he hands her the glass and his lips find the shell of her ear, caressing and descending low to her jaw. She sags visibly at the touch but it’s still a far cry from relaxed.

“You sure you’re fine? You seem a little tense,” he murmurs softly, thumb coming up to the back of her neck to feel the tight knots of her muscles. The pressure of his massage washes like cool relief and Sakura only sighs, her hand finding his chest and smoothing her palm firmly against it up to his collarbone.

“Yeah, I…” Her voice trails off when Genma retreats. The loss of contact almost draws a pout but he doesn’t notice, taking a sip of his wine and stirring the curry bubbling languidly in the pan. Out of the corner of his eye he can see her brows draw in though and she scowls before drinking too. She doesn’t seem to pick up where she left off and the silence is thick in the air. His eyebrow quirks quizzically as he turns back around and finds Sakura far away. Looking down into the glass as she swings it by moving the foot in circles on the counter, chewing on her lip deep in thought. It takes half an eternity to the impatient cop until she finally comes out with the truth.

“Listen, it’s just—” Jade eyes dart back to his earthy ones but upon establishing eye contact, she clamps her mouth shut mid sentence. Something crucial must’ve happened in her thought process because now she’s glaring at him suddenly. It almost makes him laugh. “Why are you cooking?”

The angles of his mouth quirk up in earnest but the chuckle rumbling in his throat is definitely confused. Crossing arms thickly corded with muscle over his chest, he asks, “What?”

“This isn’t a date,” Sakura blurts out. Her shoulders square when he laughs.

“Oh, I see,” Genma grins and his nose wrinkles as he tries to hold back more laughter due to her very sour expression. The way she presses her lips into a pout and raises her chin defiantly is very charming however and he has to resist to not brush the stray lock behind her ear, that slowly slips down her cheek.

“No, this _isn’t_ a date.”

A sigh of relief deflates her lungs but her eyes still search his face for an explanation. They flit down briefly to his hands when he hooks one finger in one of her belt loops and draws her closer. The contact is like a Xanax kicking in, her irritation deflates instantly.

“I don’t know how you thought this was going to go over,” another tug on her jeans, another skipped heartbeat, and she’s almost flush against him, standing with his hip leaned to the counter. “But I just like to treat a woman.”

His free hand catches her chin softly and Sakura feels her stomach flutter. Licking her lips, she can feel the tension drain further from her body as it increases between them. Her soft hands find his stomach and slide lower, resting on his belt and the cold metal buckle.

“And you thought dinner would be the best way to treat me?”

He hums and shrugs. Calloused fingers wander from holding her chin to slide along her jaw and cup the back of her neck. Sakura is so distracted by his lips connecting to her throat in light kisses, that she barely hears when he speaks again, “It’s usually a good start.”

“You didn’t even ask me if I had any allergies.”

Sakura is in full auto pilot mode and only realises what she said there when his laugh rings full and deep from his belly. Embarrassment sprouts immediately and her face flushes fuchsia.

“Are you always so left brained?” Affection colours his voice before he presses a quick kiss to her lips. There’s no tongue or heat in it, just ease and naturalness. Like he’s kissed her a million times. Almost domestic.

When he lets go of her to shut off the stove, Sakura’s head spins a little, opting to take a sip of her wine as if that would make it better.

Genma follows suit and gives the curry a last stir before catching her eye, “Hungry?”

Sometimes being so ‘left brained’, as the pretty cop put it, has its perks. Sakura always takes an opportunity when she sees it. Green locks with brown and her intention is clear. Her hands are on his belt buckle again and slip low.

“Very.”

The world spins a little faster on its axis, or maybe its just Sakura. Genma whirls her around like she weighs nothing. Large hands find the soft roundness of her bottom and she’s swept off her feet, spun around and plopped right down on the empty space on the counter. A sigh squeezes itself into the air before Genma captures her mouth in a searing kiss, and this time she is prepared to respond. Her fingers thread into his hair and hold onto his belt, with a roll of both her wrists she pulls him in close. This is what she came for and her whole body makes that crystal clear.

Her tongue practically fights his as they exchange hot and sloppy kisses. Her chest arches into his hand sliding up her stomach and her legs sling around his hips tightly. A groan rumbles from his chest to hers when she scoots further to the edge to roll her hips right into him, he’s hardening right against her heat and the only delicious smell surrounding her is his now. Cinnamon and sandalwood fill her nose when his lips slide from hers down her chin and suck at her throat. Sakura growls practically, surprising herself with the feral noise and Genma’s canines sliding over her skin, due to his grin, only serve to intensify the feeling. It makes the heat in her belly turn from hot to sweltering.

Having Sakura go from skittish and sceptical to practically rolling her whole body into his hands was fascinating to watch and even more rewarding to experience. Genma felt proud at her purrs and larger than life at her fingers tightening in his hair. While he had appreciated the jeans clinging so tightly to her hips when she came in, they’re proving to be a very annoying barrier now. The revealing silk blouse, she wore, held together by a tie in the front is much more forthcoming in that regard though. Last time he didn’t pay much attention to her chest and he regretted that greatly. Since he is a man who learns from his mistakes though, he disconnects from her neck now to watch as his fingers undo the neat little bow tie. Silk falls aside and reveals dusty pink nipples gracing her small but perky breasts. _Pretty._ There is no other word to describe them, nor Sakura, when his thumb brushes featherlight over one hardened rosebud.

Her face is flushed the exact same colour but her eyes are hazy as she watches him descend on the other breast. She gasps and the sharp inhale only puffs out her ribcage further, thusly pressing even more into Genma’s lips closing around her. His tongue swirls as he pinches the left nipple and Sakura’s head lolls back, sending a cascade of pink down her back. Her hands are practically useless as they grow limp in his hair and against his stomach. Just as her breaths grow deep, her sighs become rounder, Genma grows bold and bites down. Her spine straightens, verterbrae drawn up like pearls on a string and the sound coming from her mouth rings in the large space of the kitchen. Her fingers snap to attention immediately and she forces his head hard against her chest while her other hand scrabbles at his belt, undoing it awkwardly with only one hand.

“Hey, hey, no rushing this time,” Genma breathes. Voice low and rough, it makes her thighs squeeze a little and her hands more urgent despite his words.

Sakura growls and shoves her hand into his jeans, finding what she’s looking for at once. He’s hard and hot and panting into her sternum as she strokes him. “Why not?”

The cop under her mercy gives no answer, no verbal one at least. Instead his hands fall down to her hips and she finds herself picked up again, lips caught in a bruising kiss as he groans against her. There will be other times to tease her into a frenzy, he’s sure of it. Or at least other times to have her on the counter. Sakura practically oozes fervor and eagerness, he isn’t sure he’s patient enough to resist her at the rate she burns.

On staggering steps they enter the hallway again and Genma can’t help himself but press her against the wall every so often, listening to her appreciative mewls and moans as he bucks and rolls against her growing heat. The next time he rolls against her, her back is flush with his mattress and she’s sucking at his neck hard. In his mid thirties, he finds himself a little old for hickeys but he just can’t muster the willpower to cut her short. Sakura’s teeth grazing over the angry skin draws a long low moan from him and a jerk of his hips. The thick denim of both their jeans starts to feel stiff and restricting and as if sharing the same thought both their hands disconnect from hair and curves and paw at the buttons and zippers.

Grabbing a handful of fabric at the back of his neck, Genma raises onto his knees and tears his shirt over and off his head. The offending piece of clothing ruffles his hair in the process and Sakura lets out an appreciative hum at the sight, louder than intended. Pink dusts her cheeks as he catches her eye and flashes her an overconfident grin. She feels like a teenager watching their crush at after school practice on the field and gossiping about it with her friends. Like the exact jock being watched, Genma knows. And appreciates it fully. He can’t deny revelling in the attention and cockily puts on a little show as he flexes his abs for her.

A breathless, high laugh tickles her lungs and in answer she lifts her hips to push her jeans over them. At once his hands take over for her as he drags the thick material down her legs, peeling her out of them and showering every inch of revealed skin in fluttery kisses. Contently she sighs and arches sensually into the sheets. Slender arms lift above her head and they grasp at a fluffy pillow when his lips ghost over her clothed mound on his way back up to her lips. Like last time, Genma presses a wet but tender kiss over her lips and temple before leaning for his nightstand. Sakura slaps his hand away as he reaches inside the drawer and pulls out a condom herself. Instead of opening it though she lifts the foil packet to her face. He watches her curiously as she frowns at it for a moment, before flipping it between her fingers.

“Do I need to get these for when you come over or are you bringing them?”

The brunette can’t help but grin as he leans back onto the bed, drawing her attention only briefly as he’s making work of his jeans again and shimmying out of them.

“Are we doing this again then?” The question is murmured into her hip bone, teeth drag down the cotton of her underwear a little before he kisses below her navel. His index fingers hook into the band on either side and he pulls them down as he answers her own question, “I’m bringing, don’t worry.”

She snickers a little through a sigh, watching intently and with her breath held when he brushes her lightly. A groan escapes them both as Sakura spreads her thighs further and he tests her entrance softly with two fingertips. The contact doesn’t last and she’s practically dripping wet and eager. Her hips tilt upward uncoordinated, trying to chase the feeling of fulfilment as he retracts his hand again. It is only to pull his boxer shorts off, but Sakura pouts a little nevertheless. Sensing how rapidly her irritation can grow, Genma covers her body with his and kisses her deep and soothing. A peace offering of sorts, he pours all of his naturally calm demeanor into his actions; stroking her hair and her waist. When her hands cup his face, he sees it as the sign for her to have relaxed and he takes the opportunity to swipe the condom off her, breaking their kiss finally only to roll it over himself.

Déjà-vu overcomes them both as Sakura halts him again when he’s about to nestle himself between her thighs. Only this time she gives him a hard shove against his shoulder that makes him topple over. With more shake than grace to her limbs Sakura prods and pushes at him until he’s flat on his back and she swings one leg over him. Her chin raises and even naked as she is, there’s fierceness and regality in her eyes and posture.

“Haven’t decided yet,” she says. Fresh petulance pushes out her chest as her shoulders roll backward, Genma doesn’t complain over the view. Her thighs strain as she lifts herself and he can barely enjoy just the feeling of her touching him. All wind is knocked out of his lungs as she rocks her hips down onto his length. Her feminine voice raises an entire octave in her moan, and her palm comes to rest on his chest. She didn’t forget exactly how much he stretches her, she just underestimated it this time. Fullness isn’t even a term to describe what she’s feeling anymore, it’s a whole cocktail of pleasant feelings. There’s him, inside her, touching her _everywhere_. So deep she can see stars behind closed lids. Then there’s his thumbs, grounding her to the here and now, they’re locked on her hips as they rub soothing circles over them. His own breaths shudder in his chest and he is suppressing the overwhelming urge to buck up into her. But she doesn’t know or see that.

When Sakura’s eyes open after a few long breaths they meet his immediately and her chest feels tight. Every time Genma looks at her it is with impossible _softness_. Even in a moment of passion, even when he fucked her from behind, even as strangers. It makes her ribs feel tight and brittle under the swell of her heart, even now as a shiver runs down her spine. Kakashi may have scared her to hell and back with the inexplicable familiarity between them but not even he looked at her this way. Genma is tenderness embodied and a quiet beast deep in her belly snarls that if they had met sooner in life, Sakura may not think of marriage as a sham contract to break the other person’s spirits.

His hand on the back of her neck, drawing her down to him for a long kiss, pulls her back to the present. She was allowed to indulge. Having a piece of chocolate in your diet isn’t so bad, right? _Just can’t have the whole thing._

The dance of their tongues grows fervent and when Sakura finally rolls her hips they both moan into the other’s mouth. As soon as she is set in motion, she finds momentum. Spurned on by his body’s response, like his hands tightening on her hips and aiding her as she slides up and down his cock, Sakura works herself into a fast pace quickly.

The clap of their bodies meeting echoes in the room and Genma drags her closer and closer to his body, simply not feeling her just enough. Sweat slicks their skin and Genma’s breath grows ragged. There’s no kisses exchanged anymore, they both gulp air fast between groans and cries. Sakura is going too fast, he’ll unravel too quickly at this rate and Genma isn’t keen on embarrassing himself.

Making use of his physical police training for once he rolls them in one fluid motion over and Sakura groans as the angle changes and his hips snap into hers. His solid broad body cages her and she slings her arms around his neck at once. One especially hard thrust draws a curse from her swollen lips and her arms roll into the back of her head. Genma’s face comes to bury in the pillow beside her head, his breath is hot and damp on her neck and she’s sure that they’re approaching their peak at similar paces. With every thrust growing more and more jerked Sakura feels lighter and lighter, twisting the coil in her lower belly tighter and tighter. It’s only when he slips his hand behind her knee and pushes her leg back toward her chest that the tide breaks. Her nails dig into his back and his suppressed curse falls on deaf ears.

When she clamps and spasms around him, Genma knows what paradise means, what it feels like. Blinding white bliss engulfs him as he thrusts a few more times and comes with a strangled moan and her clutching to him like he’s the lifeline she’s been looking for.

His weight should crush her as he relaxes over her but Sakura can’t help and enjoy the heaviness. The pressure is soothing on top of her afterglow and her fingers grow tender as they dance over his spine and brush the hair out of his face as he rests it on the pillow next to her.

Slowly her heart rate recovers to a normal pace, and the thumping comes into sync with his over top. She is soft and satisfied when she speaks, “Yeah, we’re definitely doing this again.”


	6. take a chance on me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *clearing my throat, turning on meme voice* McKellerton, quit telling everyone I’m dead!
> 
> JK I’m sorry I’ve been so MIA, I MISS U
> 
> I feel like I’ve been writing this chapter for millennia but I actually like how this turned out.
> 
> I hope you all had great holidays, mine lowkey killed me but I still had a lovely time!
> 
> please enjoy and tell me what you think!!

The sheets dampen on their sweat slicked bodies and as her heartbeat slows, Sakura considers indulging in just a brief catnap, in Genma’s nest of warmth and comfort, before hailing a cab back to her lonely medicinal world across town. But his embrace of warm arms around her never comes and she feels strangely hurt over it. Instead the weight on the mattress shifts and her eyes flutter open to watch the nude form of her lover desert her side.

  
The confusion must show on her face, as Genma throws her a mild smile over his sculpted shoulder, “Dinner?”

She wants to smile. _Of course he’d think of food._ Indulgence is written all over his heart, it’s no surprise it stretches beyond the sinful temptations. But just as the corners of her mouth quirk up, he sends her heart into her throat by shimmying into a pair of grey sweats that have an awfully familiar look to them. The police emblem, half worn and washed off on the threadbare fabric, barely soothes her anxiety and her pulse still thumps achingly hard through her veins. Ever sweet, ever soft he kisses her as she sits up hastily in his sheets, misreading the situation before he disappears into the hall. Picking a piece of clothing at random, Sakura starts after him.

In the hallway, her train of thought derails and Sakura strays.

On bare feet and drowning in the fabric of his shirt that she slipped over, she pads after him at first when the soft hum of music finds her ear. Instead of taking the left to where Genma can be heard, making a ruckus with pots and plates, Sakura turns right and tiptoes through the open doorway of the living room. At one point he must’ve taken the door off the hinges, she muses as her fingertips run over the empty metal missing it’s counterparts.

A half hour later, now, Sakura’s balancing her half eaten meal in one hand as she absently flips through his extensive music collection.

_Like being in a store_ , she thinks as she thumbs through the crates and lets her eyes roam over band name after band name. He’s got an absolute abundance of records. Some rare, some worn, some loved, some free from their sleeve and a little scratched. Differently than in an actual store, the genres to choose from are limited. It’s mostly hard rock really, as she expected, but she isn’t bothered. It suits him and she likes it, too.

Overall, Genma has good taste, she finds. Both in his music as in his interior. Clean and warm, lived in but stylish. An apartment a couple floors higher flashes in her mind but they are barely alike. Kakashi’s home is warm too, but mismatched wherever the eye catches. As limited as her inspections of his place had been, there was no rhyme or reason visible to her to the way his apartment is furnished.

_How differently to here._ In Genma’s living room everything matches in one way or another. He likes warm wood, metal and earthy fabrics and Sakura finds again, that his apartment fits him. And that again, she likes it.

A deep blue cover, at the end of the box she’s currently inspecting, catches her eye eventually and snaps her out of her reverie at lightning speed. She flips the records in front of it forward, one by one, careful to not bend them, before pulling the object of her desire out. With wide glowing eyes she spins around to Genma, who had spent his time watching her curiously like a bird from the wide armchair. He found, that he likes watching Sakura move in his apartment.

His own plate sits long cleaned out and empty on the coffee table and his ankle rests over his knee when he meets Sakura’s excited gaze.

“Found something you like?” He laughs and tries to figure out which album she’s pulled out; her joy is light and contagious like a child’s. He finds it downright beguiling until she flips the cover to reveal her treasure. His chocolate eyes grow wide and the cheery sound of laughter dies in his throat with a croak, but she makes up for it with vigour.

“ _You_ like _ABBA_?” Her glee vibrates off her like warmth off the sun. Her face shines almost as bright, too.

Among all the classics he’s got in his collection, the _ABBA Gold_ record in her hands is the last thing she expected to find.

Sakura doesn’t wait for his response, she doesn’t care for whatever excuse he’ll come up with. Swiftly she abandons her plate next to his, before she whirls around to the record player and frees it of the current disc spinning on it.

“I can explain! It’s an ex girlfriend’s,” he tries weakly but Sakura snorts.

“Yeah, right. _Of course_ it’s an ex girlfriend’s! Uh huh,” she mocks before counting the tracks on the back of the album. Even embarrassed as he is, Genma notes how her lips move as she mouths the numbers silently and her fingers count along. He can’t help but find it wildly endearing. A lot of things about Sakura are, but she doesn’t seem to let her guard down very often for others to see.

“It actually is!” He exclaims weakly but realises soon that it doesn’t explain why he still has it then. Sakura emphasises exactly that question when she throws him a quizzical look over her shoulder.

“I-- Uh, well-- ” Genma breaks off with a sigh. “It kind of grew on me.”

She shrugs and ignores his sputtering easily before she picks up the needle and manoeuvres it with a surgeon’s precision to the sixth line. The familiar static comes first, before the hush of _Super Trouper_ ’s opening line brings the air into swing.

Pleased with her selection, Sakura whips around again, sending her hair flying over her shoulder before she pins Genma with her viridian eyes. A sight as beautiful as it is terrifying.

“What’s you favourite song?”

For a moment he simply stares dumbfounded back at her. Jaw gone slack and his eyebrows knit in incredulity.

Genma can’t believe this. They talk about music, a topic so dear to his heart, but then it’s about _ABBA_? He should’ve thrown that record out together with his ex girlfriend’s other shit, when she decided to come clean about the fact that she was _married._

Defeated and caught, his fingers brush back through his hair before he sighs.

“Unpopular choice but I’m a fan of _Lay All Your Love On Me_.”

The swing of her hip, as she was softly rocking along with the music, comes to an immediate stop at his answer and she doesn’t hide her surprise.

“Oh?” Is all she manages, but it is enough to prompt an explanation.

Still a bit uncomfortable, Genma shifts in his seat and leans forward. Elbows on his knees, he rubs his palms together in thought before he reaches into the arm’s length of empty space between them and tugs her toward him by the hem of his shirt grazing her thigh.

“I just like how devoted it is. So all-consuming,” he says, soft and a little flushed when he tilts his face up toward hers. But she scowls now, stony and critical.

Genma doesn’t fear her. He doubles down and adds with a boyish grin, “I feel like you won’t believe me, but I’m actually damn romantic.”

Her knee freezes mid air. Even skeptical of his intentions, Sakura was just about to crawl into his lap but now she does hesitate. Any woman would jump at such a declaration. Jump _him_. But Sakura?

She isn’t looking for what he’s offering. His words only make anxiety crawl up her spine. Her scowl deepens with every second of silence, but Genma’s hand is reaching slowly to the back of her thigh, to the curve of her waist, and he pulls her forward again.

“No, this isn’t a date. And no, I’m not trying to butter you up or anything,” he teases, trying to ease her tension by joking. By showing her gently that he understands her.

It even kind of works. A warm grin tugs at the corners of his mouth, and god help her, is it charming. After an agonizing beat of silence, Sakura matches it. Her hands come to rest on his shoulders and she absently plays with the hair at the nape of his neck. Sakura appreciates the effort he puts in.

He shrugs eventually and adds with a grin, “You just asked. And at least I’m not as bad as my partner.”

As soon as the words have passed his lips Genma blanches and makes a face as though he just said something he _really_ shouldn’t have said. Her brow quirks in question immediately. All leftover shreds of irritation are wiped from her face now and replaced with pure curiosity. He seems to fight himself for a moment but indulges her at last with a sigh.

“Ah, he’d die if I know I told you this, but his favourite is actually _The Winner Takes It All_ , and if that isn’t even more embarrassing, I don’t know what is,” the laugh comes freely to him but Sakura is stiff as a board in front of him again. This back and forth is exhausting but all her nerve endings are tingling.

“Did you talk about me? With him?” She can’t help it. The words are out again before her head has time to catch up with this sudden hot ball of lead in her stomach. Something about this gives her an awful feeling.

Now it’s Genma’s turn to scowl.

“I may have mentioned that I met someone casually. Why? Do you know each other?”

There’s an urge emerging inside her to bark at him, chastise him and unleash all ill feelings festering inside her at a rapid rate on him. _But that wouldn’t be fair_ , she reprimands herself. _It’s not him that made a mistake. ~~(Did I make a mistake?)~~_

Instead of succumbing to her panic, she takes a measured breath as she finally sinks down onto his lap and presses out from a tight lipped smile, “No, we don’t. I don’t know any cops.” She shakes her head and laughs before she continues, but the sound is thin and dies quickly in her mouth. “I’d simply prefer if you didn’t talk about me. To anyone. At all, that is. Don’t take it personally, I’m just _very_ private.”

_Lies, lies, lies._ When did she become such a liar? When did she become so secretive? Sure, she’s acquired a taste for ‘a bit of a dirty secret’ after Sasuke ripped apart their life, but never to this extent. _This is past the point of a thrill, isn’t it? This is terrifying. But why can’t I stop?_

For a moment it feels to Sakura like Genma sees right through her, like he can watch the nausea wave and bubble up her oesophagus. Like he can see the nervous flutter in her chest and the bated breath she’s awaiting his reaction with. Like he can see her try to get away with something kind of criminal. And maybe he really can, but if he does — he lets her.

His hands come to rest on the swell of her hips and they grip her firmly before he nods and the unconvinced look of suspicion turns to soft, beaten acceptance. The tension between them is still thick like a wet blanket and Sakura feels wretched, only grounded to consciousness by his touch.

“What’s _your_ favourite?”

Unexpectedly Genma’s low baritone vibrates through her whole body, from the base of her spine up to her pounding skull. Slowly her glassy green eyes focus back on his deep earthy ones, and she finds them warm and gentle. _Yes, he is tenderness embodied._ It makes her want to hold him. Hold tightly _onto_ him and his soothing nature, but she settles for the casual alternative by loosely looping her arms around his neck instead.

The words he spoke don’t make sense to her though. She barely listened really and like a bird she cocks her head in question with a quizzical frown.

“On the record,” he laughs and nods over to the album still playing. “What’s your favourite song on it?”

Sakura seems like she’d been worlds away and it’s curious to watch her find her way back to the present; tumbling over stars, tripping over constellations and shouldering her way through the stratosphere. He likes to think that his hands on her back, massaging knotted muscles and caressing soft skin, are what guide her back safely to the here and now. _To him._ He doesn’t know where her head was at and the better part of him doesn’t want to know. The part that reasons that he has no right to ask. _This isn’t a date._

For a moment Sakura just seems to hum and watch the record spin, before she turns back to him and smirks. It’s triumphant, but her eyes are still strangely glazed.

“ _Voulez-Vous_ of course,” she answers lastly and all her confidence seems to have come rushing back to her, like the flush streams of glacier melt in spring. Her cheeks glow with fresh heat and finally her eyes turn from glassy and milky to clear and heated.

He clicks his tongue and now his grin turns lopsided as one corner quirks up higher.

“Of course,” he repeats. He doesn’t believe her one moment but she’s made it clear that this is how she wants him to see her.

From her head whipping to and fro, a curl has wrought itself free from behind her ear. This time he can’t resist pushing it back. His fingertips are rough on her smooth skin, but the touch makes her shiver. “You’re not much for romance, are you now?”

There are many things she could say to him now, but Sakura is tired of this topic. Her answer is simple: her hips roll like a rockslide and she grinds down against him. He groans when her breath strokes over his earlobe.

“Romance is for young girls and married women. I’m grown and divorced, Genma. I’m over romance,” she whispers gently but her jaw is set.

The words catch on her teeth and they gnash on her heart. She never thought she’d give up on something so essential to herself, but then she also never thought she’d not be with Sasuke. Or that she’d be seeing two men at the same time. Or that she’d ever just do what makes her feel good for once.

He looks like he’s about to say something, protest in any way, but Sakura drowns out all vowels and consonants forming on his tongue as she presses her lips to his. Tenderly he reciprocates but she is adamant, and pushes all his softness away. Fiercely she swipes her tongue over his bottom lip and invades his mouth urgently when he grants her entrance.

Even if there’s still a part in him that wants to argue, he can’t help but surrender to her hungry kiss and the hard roll of her hips. _It’s just too convincing of an argument._ So he relents and his hand cups the back of her head, threading into her mussed strands, making her sigh and arch into his touch.

When she breaks away and begins to suck at his neck, his body responds instinctively and he bucks up into her. Hard, as one hand holds down her hips. It draws a pleasant, high-pitched gasp from her throat and her nails dig into his shoulders.

Firm, large hands drag her borrowed garments up and off her body. As soon as he’s chucked the shirt off to the side and her pretty face is revealed to him again, he catches Sakura’s mouth in another deep kiss. Her fire has caught on to him and he’s practically devouring her. As his thumbs drag over her hardened nipples, she arches her back into a near perfect curve and Genma growls when she bites his lip.

_What an addictive sound._

Without further thought she bites him again and grinds down wantonly against his now straining length, just to hear it one more time. For both their pleasure, he indulges her and takes it further by nipping her back as he jerks up and into her. She wants it rough and he’ll give her anything she wants.

Sakura moans and grinds her bare heat down onto him even more urgently than before. Unsurprisingly, his sweats are beginning to be soaked by her wetness and impatience thrums through both their veins. It pulses hot and heavy under their sensitized skin and pools like liquid fire beneath their loins.

To her vocal dismay, he’s the first to break the kiss. Chest heaving, he dodges Sakura trying to catch his lips again and laughs lightly as he leans her further back to reach down behind her.

“Just looking for a condom,” he assures her with a grin as he rummages through the drawer on the side of his coffee table, technically meant for remotes.

“You keep them in the living room?” Sakura shoots back without missing a beat and his earlier words ring through her head again: _Are you always so left brained?_

“Better safe than sorry, right?” He laughs again, but the sound is different to before; much more rough and throaty now. It sends a shiver down her spine that makes her inner walls clench around nothing.

The crinkle of plastic has never sounded so lovely to her. Sakura scoots back on his lap eagerly; before he can even open the package her hands are on the waistband of his sweats and wrenching them down enough to let his impressive cock spring free. Genma groans and almost drops the condom when her hands wrap around him and pump languidly.

“Babe, you’re killing me,” he groans out affectionately and Sakura finds herself revelling both in the pet name and him nuzzling at her neck for a moment, before he rips the package with shaky hands.

“Is that a complaint?”

Genma barely manages to shake his head as she lifts herself up onto her knees as soon as he’s rolled the latex down. They meet in a hard kiss, bruising lips and knocking teeth together.

Sakura’s hands shake too as she lines him up with her and the connection of their lips crumbles into pants at their first brush. He cups her arse and utilises every bit of self restraint to not pull her down to the hilt as she begins to sink down onto him. There is no need though, as soon as he’s begun stretching her, Sakura does it herself. She lets her hips drop heavy and hard and her lips part in a wordless cry. Genma curses into her hair and involuntarily his hips buck ever so lightly up into her.

Sakura’s vision goes white for a moment with pleasure and she’s overwhelmed with the feeling of fullness that he grants her. His fingertips brush her cheek and Sakura almost wilts at the tenderness of his following kiss. The juxtaposition between how gently he nips at her lips and how hot and hard he’s pulsing inside her makes her head spin.

It’s calculated though, like the calm before the storm.

Without warning or further prompting Genma plants his feet on the carpet and creates enough leverage to snap his hips up into hers. _Hard._ Sakura bounces skyward with a gasp and grasps onto his hair for dear life but she doesn’t get to catch her breath. He sets a rough and fast rhythm from the get go, and groans curses and praises into her open mouth. It takes her a few thrusts and a handful of sloppy kisses to gain her bearings but eventually she rolls her hips and meets him eagerly at every downward stroke.

It’s only their third time together but it doesn’t seem hard for either to find and memorize their rhythm. It comes to them as natural as breathing and Sakura doesn’t have to think as she kisses his neck and nibbles at his jaw, drawing sighs and growls from his throat.

As such, it goes either way. Genma knows just when to pinch her nipple and seems to sense just the moment, that her thighs begin to spasm to slip his hand from her breast down between them and draw perfect circles over her clit with his broad thumb.

Sakura clenches almost instantly and he grips her hair by the nape of her neck harder than intended. Yet it only draws an even throatier moan from her chest and he can’t help but imitate the sound at once.

Her nails dig harder into his flesh the closer she finds herself and Genma increases both his pace and pressure. His chest heaves with laboured breaths and he wants to burrow his face in the crook of her neck, but he just can’t tear his eyes from her features. So he pulls on her hair further to watch her in all her glory. She’s _gorgeous_ when she comes. And his absolute undoing when she falls apart around him.

He’s never met anyone as _vibrant_ as her and he doubts he ever will.

Before she leaves that night, Genma makes her see stars two more times and she learns that the origin of his cinnamon scent lies in his body wash. Armed with a take home serving of the scrumptious dinner he cooked, Sakura braves the cab ride home with damp hair, kiss bruised lips and shaky legs.

* * *

Even through the closed door of her apartment can he hear her steps thunder on the expensive parquet floor. They had agreed to meet at four, sharp. It is now 5:48PM.

“You are late! You are _so - fucking - late!_ ” Sakura hollers even before she lays eyes on him; her voice roars and can probably be heard all the way back to his apartment. The door is ripped open and he’s impressed it doesn’t fly straight off the hinges. Revealed to him then is a blazing vision of fury and the vivid flush of her face that matches her hair immaculately.

As if it’s his personal fight or flight response, he doubles down on his nonsense. It’s instinct. He simply can’t fight it; so he grins at her, boyish and apologetic, “Honey, I’m home…”

The tension in her neck seems to strain even harder and a vein begins to pulse on her forehead. Kakashi has seen all sorts of intimidating figures. Both privately and in his line of work; anyone from mob bosses to plain night club bouncers. None of them have ever looked so ready to slap his grin off his face.

Her small but strong hand grabs a fistful of his shirt and she jerks him inside roughly, before slamming the door behind him. As soon as he’s past the threshold, she lets go and punches his shoulder. Her knuckles are hard as diamonds – _literally_ , as the platinum rings she wears are studded with princess cuts worth his yearly salary.

A startled huff escapes his throat. _Fuck, that actually hurt._

Before he can gather his wits, she’s already throwing her hands up in exasperation though and he can’t help but flinch away, dead afraid she might aim for his face this time. Sakura has no sympathy. Her rage burns bright and she booms venomously like the titan she is, “The _fuck,_ Kakashi? I said _four!_ FOUR! It’s almost six! I thought by this time you’d already be on your way again!”

That last part hurts almost more than his shoulder, or his bruised ego for that matter. Dusting himself off like she didn’t just practically assault him, Kakashi shrugs nonchalantly and meets her eyes evenly. If he’s heard one thing in his life more than enough, it’s complaints about his time management. It _is_ however one of the few times that the consequences were quite so… immediate and visceral.

“Maa, Sakura, talk about making your guests feel welcome,” he clicks his tongue, absolutely _unable_ to stop riling her up and as expected, her eyes blaze with fresh fight. He just has to challenge her, doesn’t he? The doctor looks like she’s going to swing again if he doesn’t think of something quick.

Her pull is like gravity. Maybe it’s a primal thing, maybe it’s because they both knew that this was technically nothing but an invitation to fuck anyhow, but neither is surprised that Kakashi’s _‘quick thinking’_ involves getting physical with her. Or that Sakura opens her mouth hot and wide to him when he crushes his lips against hers.

In a matter of seconds, he’s got her hoisted and pinned up against the wall of her hallway and her thighs wrapped around his waist, grinding and canting against him. The connection comes so naturally to them both, it feels kind of like coming home after a long trip.

Sakura can’t really decide if the anger is being replaced by her arousal or if the flames just merge together in her belly. All she knows is that her body is on fire and she’s charring to coal wherever his hands reach. Like the curve of her ass and the tautness of her thighs where he holds her up and grinds into her. Their kiss is hard and sloppy, but it lacks the awkwardness they should have at their level of familiarity. Their noses don’t bump against each other; they just fit and meet each frantic tilt of the other’s head like they’re performing a dance they each know by heart.

She doesn’t know how to feel about it. And Sakura refuses to give it much thought either. All that she is certain of in that moment, is that she loves the taste of his tongue and the way he’s growing hard against her core. Her legs tighten around him and she’s dragging on the roots of his argent hair, maliciously enjoying his light groans the further she tightens her grip.

_This isn’t how I had planned this._ Kakashi thinks through the fog of lust thickening in his skull when Sakura moans softly into his mouth. To be fair, if he had wanted things to go according to his vague plan, he should’ve maybe shown up at least _almost_ on time. After all, she had said to him before: _I’m never late._

But he already knew last week, that that statement spelled trouble.

His lungs burn and he reluctantly pulls away from her mouth with a gasp. Sakura pants too, but surprisingly to them both, they don’t meet in a kiss again. As oxygen rushes back to both their brains, they find some sort of serenity to think straight again. Graphite eyes search her sage green depths for a few shaky breaths until she looks away hastily. His gaze is like x-ray to her and she feels vulnerable; trapped between his warm, sculpted body and the wall of the home she had to make for herself.

“Sorry for being late,” he murmurs eventually against the corner of her mouth and Sakura kisses him sweetly with closed eyes. All chastity and forgiveness as she strokes his hair and shrugs with a smile.

“It’s fine, just warn me next time,” she smirks with a wink before disentangling her shaky legs and setting her swaying feet back down onto the ground. No, she didn’t miss the quirk of his brow and she can practically hear the _‘Next time?’_ roll around his mouth without him saying it.

“You can hang your jacket up over there,” Sakura dismisses him with the gesture of her hand to the coatrack as she rounds the corner of the hall. Her steps to the kitchen are like the soft pitter patter of rain on a tin roof, instead of the booming thunder rolling down the mountains.

Kakashi follows her instructions obediently as he hangs up his jacket and takes off his shoes. Somewhere beside the flipping of his stomach, he has the gut feeling that Sakura would not take well to him tracking big city dirt all throughout her neat, expensive little place. He’s barely seen a square foot of it, but so far everything seems just as light and groomed as Sakura herself. He feels misplaced and mismatched. _I’m not a permanent fixture though. Neither in her apartment, nor in her life._

“Would you like a drink?” She calls and he follows her voice like it’s a siren’s song, all the way into her kitchen. The first thing he sees when he steps in, is the dip of her spine. She reaches for a bottle of wine on the top shelf of her cabinet and her t-shirt rides up with the stretch of her body. It’s a mystery to him how she even got that bottle up there in the first place, because there’s no way she’s coming even close to it without climbing the counter.

Well, he swore to protect and serve, didn’t he?

Sakura feels his fingertips brush her waist first. His touch is electric, but only when she feels his presence step behind her, do her knees weaken. Their shirts ruffle against each other as he reaches past her fingertips and fishes the bottle off the shelf. Time has slowed and the moment doesn’t seem to end until it snaps with the sound of the bottle hitting the counter. Her held breath rattles in her chest and Kakashi lets go of her immediately, as though she burns.

“I’d love a glass,” he murmurs lastly when he pulls away and puts a good arm’s length of space between them. Not of his own choosing but she’s demonstrated what she’s capable of and her body language is currently resembling a caged animal.

Sakura nods rigidly at his words, and overfills both glasses with stiff hands. Their eyes meet briefly and she doesn’t understand where all this tension came from, she only knows that her ribcage feels too tight for her lungs and her heart thumps against it.

In contrast, Kakashi is aloofness personified. He’s relaxed and gentle as he accepts the glass thrust toward him. They both drink. When he gifts her with a gentle smile, so desperate to ease her tension, Sakura cracks like ceramic.

“I have rules.”


	7. like real people do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK!
> 
> it's been so long and i'm so sorry for taking so long to update. whew lots has happened in my life! i had to take a short trip in january down to my mom's home country to see my grandmother before she passed away early in february, i got a position i applied for, i dropped weight and gained more anxiety, i'm looking for a new apartment and i've just overall been in a huge rut creatively since the beginning of the year.
> 
> BUT FEAR NOT! i keep thinking about this story literally every day and i struggled with this chapter for a while. some parts aren't as refined and i feel like this doesn't read as smoothly as some of my earlier chapters but i'm just getting back in the habit and this chapter was really important imo
> 
> i switched around a lot of plot points in my timeline between this update and the last but i hope you still like it! i'll get to comments probably tomorrow, but please know i read them all and some of you made me cry with joy and i really really really appreciate them. reviews and feedback are my BIGGEST motivators when i'm stuck! 
> 
> THANKS FOR ALL THE LOVE, ILY

Rules seem to meet Kakashi at every twist and turn of his life. He’d round a corner and every time without fail, run headfirst into a wall of guidelines, stacked on the foundation of law and built with the granite of order. At one point he used to love rules; adored them. Worshipped them. Abided by them like they were gospel.

_But no extreme can be good,_ life reminded him. _Here, I’ll show you,_ it said, and took a crowbar to his kneecaps.

Sakura seems like the type of person to love rules, too. And to-do lists probably.

_She seems left brained like that,_ is what Genma would say -- so Kakashi thinks. _How charming._

The silence between them now is thick and Sakura seems to bristle when he chuckles. None of this should surprise him if he thought harder about it, but he doesn’t. Won’t. Sakura has so far kept him on his toes from the moment her breath hit the back of his neck for the very first time. And he intends to keep it that way.

“You’ve got rules,” he repeats eventually, as he twists his wine glass in his hand. First left then right, then left again. He’s almost twirling it by the thin stem. That aggravates her. “Alright,” he nods thoughtfully but doesn’t meet her eye just yet and frankly, that kind of aggravates her, too. _He_ aggravates her.

Instead of continuing, saying _anything_ , he takes a sip. Actually he takes a rather large gulp, that makes him grimace and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. Sakura watches it tersely, white knuckling her own glass until _finally_ he meets her gaze.

She’d rather he look away again.

“Such as?” Kakashi asks, his tone neither light nor suspicious. A hint of a smile ghosts around the corner of his mouth, but his eyes are locked down and unyielding. A true detective at work, hesitant to let on his own thoughts.

Rules are comfort. They’re the black and white shields to the tempting and treacherous depths of grey in the world. Sakura hates mysteries and uncertainties. She hates moral dilemmas and ethical quandaries. She likes her situations clean cut and expectations clear. No way to stray, no place to trip. Nothing to jump her from the grey, nothing to weasel between the cracks of her walls.

When she looks at Kakashi she sees grey. _So_ _many_ shades of grey. From his argent hair that nips at her hands like lightning when she pulls on its roots, over the mottled grey tinge of his dress shirt that she wants to rip off his body thread for thread, to his eyes of smoke that whisper promises of fire -- of ash and inferno.

Sakura needs rules. She needs shields. She needs fireproof clothing.

Because grey scares the living shit out of her.

With her feathers already ruffled by that simple inquiry, Sakura shifts her weight uncomfortably and huffs as she crosses and uncrosses her arms. Kakashi just watches, mildly amused.

_How does he fucking do that? Unnerving asshole. Hot really hot but definitely an unnerving asshole. Fuck._

"Well, first of all," she starts, haughtily, pressing the words out between clenched teeth. Now it’s her that won’t look at him right out unless it is to glare pointedly. The tension has not dissipated one bit and her anxiety vocalises itself in icy aggression. "This is _casual_. We don't go on dates, you don't take me to the movies or dinner, we don't see each other outside of our apartments. None of that."

Even if he expected her to say just this, the words hit his chest like hot bullets.

_Don't be a fool, you knew this. You knew this from the start_ , he chides himself immediately and only gives her a choppy nod as her gaze spears him, frantically looking for acknowledgement. The only silver lining right now is that her shoulders sag a fraction once she’s spoken her opening piece and Kakashi muses how long she'll have to talk until she'll relax again.

"In that vein," she picks up again, but her voice hitches up an octave immediately and her throat clamps shut when he takes a step toward her. In the fraction of seconds that she took to articulate her next crushing condition, Kakashi has made up his mind.

He knows what she’s going to say next. He knows all the other rules she has since their first and last night together when she practically fled his home. And the better part of him doesn’t care to hear them. Because truth is: He agreed to her terms and conditions when he bought her that first drink. He knew them then and he knows them now. If this is the only way she’ll let him see her again, _well then, be it_.

He’s sure in his decision. He’s made up his mind.

Sakura on the other hand doesn’t have even an ounce of his ease nor his certainty on the matter. She feels crowded and anxious and desperate to mark the playing field.

Thusly, when he steps toward her, she feels interrupted and like he’s intruding on her process. On instinct Sakura moves back only for her to bump right into the counter behind her. _Dead end._

As if to force her body into relaxation, she leans awkwardly to the counter and huffs out a heavy breath, trying to be as subtle as possinle as she rolls back her shoulders. Kakashi doesn’t care for her piss poor impromptu meditation and he steps into her personal space.

Her heart begins to gallop but her voice is steady when she starts again, adamant to stay on topic, "In that vein, I don't give a fuck about who else you see and vice versa. It's none of our business. Alright?"

"Alright," he agrees with her and smiles to mask the strain in his jaw. It doesn't sit right with him but she is drawing up her safety net here. His other option would be to not have her at all and that would sit even less right with him. "More?"

Sakura barely has time to think because just as she's trying to remember her bullet points (which she neatly wrote down in her journal, like the good scholar she is), his lips connect with her neck and her brain short circuits. Kakashi is a sensation and that sensation is suddenly _everywhere_.

As a knee-jerk reaction her hands fly up and fist into his shirt as his own graze over her waist and the spot where her jeans meet her t-shirt.

"What are you doing?" she gasps out, high pitched and angry.

"Agreeing to your rules," he grins into her neck and Sakura can feel every single ridge of his teeth pressed at her skin. For a couple of seconds, she inwardly swings back and forth between resuming to lay down the groundwork thoroughly and just succumbing helplessly to his touch, not realising that he's trying to coax her to do both at the same time. So when she doesn't continue, Kakashi nips playfully at the spot below her jaw bound for her ear. "Keep talking."

Reluctantly her hands relax their grip but her head is still swimming when he places open mouthed kisses on her pulse point, and the words keep floating just out of her reach for a few more heartbeats. 

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not interested in your life," she breathes eventually and at once a laugh wrenches itself out of her throat at how callous her own words sound in her ears. Kakashi joins her even through the stab of pain they lodge between his ribs.

She can feel the vibrations of his chest beneath her fingertips and the jump of his heart. Tentatively they slip upward, smoothing over cotton until she feels the heat of his skin and the rough brush of his hair at the nape of his neck. "I mean sure, tell me if you had a shit day and need to let it out, but _–"_

"You're not my girlfriend. I got it, Sakura," he cuts her off with a weak grin, and pulls away to meet her eyes. Green and wide and sad; scared like deer.

Kakashi has wondered before what she did in that bar. 

Why she acted how she did. Why she said what she said, and why she wore what she did. Who would wear silk in an awful little place like that after all?

And most of all, Kakashi has wondered, why a woman like _her_ approached someone like _him_.

At first she does not answer and swallows instead. Her fingers move first, as they curl into his hair and dig into his roots; she’s pulling him close.

He’s the warmth of the hearth to the ice of her anxiety. Inch by inch her frozen posture melts, the closer she drags him toward her, until he can feel the way her breath hitches unsteadily over his face.

"You got it," she murmurs and the corners of her mouth twitch. He wants to kiss them. But he doesn’t.

Instead of his lips on hers, the next thing Sakura feels are his hands sliding down to the swell of her ass to lift her onto the counter. The zipper of her jeans moves down audibly while he nestles himself into the space between her thighs.

When Kakashi’s lips connect once more with her skin as he gently kisses her cheek, she is suddenly painfully aware of the silence in her home, save for their breaths that grow more heavy by the seconds and the sound of fabric moving as he slowly slips his hand into her jeans. When did her life become so quiet?

Sakura has no time to lament over where the noise went because Kakashi is stroking her now and her sigh eradicates all silence. He’s soft and gentle and treats her like she’s fragile and she can’t do much more than melt into his touch. Her back curves and she leans against the wine cabinet behind her to angle her hips just so; just right for him to slip deep as she grows slick.

Her panties cling to his knuckles as he slides lower, testing and teasing her and Kakashi can’t help the immature proud grin sprouting on his face. He knows exactly that this isn’t her immediate response but the very telling remnant of their earlier stint in the hall. Just that brief flicker of fire already had her _so_ wet, it makes his mouth water and his jeans tight.

Even if he’s playing her like a fiddle with all his light touches and caresses of fire, Sakura can’t find her key just yet. There’s still one string to be tuned and her hands fist tightly into his shirt, keeping him at a distance when he leans in to kiss her.

“I have one last rule,” she sighs into the space between them and her legs draw up close around his waist.

Kakashi knew she wasn’t done yet, knew she still had one last round of ammunition. But with his hands down her panties and her eyes clouding with lust, it kind of feels like wearing a bullet proof vest.

It’s kind of a tight fit so constricted by the stiff denim of her jeans but when she doesn’t continue straight away, a second finger joins the first and Sakura gasps in delight.

“Oh yeah? What’s your rule?” His tone is almost mocking as he leans tighter over her and curls his fingers. She can barely hold her sanity together, even less so when he starts to slowly add a pumping motion to his ministrations.

The words slip through her brain like marbles through oil slicked fingers and Sakura has to close her eyes to regain control over her vocabulary. With the way he stares her down, all words lose meaning and _what was she thinking of again? Oh, rules. Right. That._

Through bitten off breaths and humming moans, she finally spits out, “You do not talk about me and you don’t know me outside of this. If we meet anywhere but in our apartments, I will not recognise you.”

Of course she’d save the stinger for last.

Kakashi doesn’t miss a beat. “Fine by me,” he presses out between clenched teeth and her eyes snap open. For some reason she knew this one was the ugliest of her conditions. The napalm.

Sakura only knows one way to soothe the burn. Clumsily, apologetically almost, she crushes her lips to his and threads her fingers through the roots of his hair. A first sigh pours from his mouth into hers as her tongue sweeps against his, eager and hungry.

Both begin to feel the fabric of their jeans start to practically chafe as their kisses grow more desperate and their muscles tighten under the strain of trying to get closer, ever closer.

An ache begins to spread behind Sakura’s navel and even with Kakashi’s fingers edging her rapidly toward her climax, she can’t wait. With a strangled groan she breaks their kiss and pulls his hand away from her.

He needs no further instructions and redirects his course of action to peeling her out of her jeans after opening and roughly shoving down his own. As he drags her toward the edge of the counter, ready to give himself over to her heavenly sin, spread out so invitingly before him, Kakashi is struck by a thought and suddenly halts.

“Uh, do you have a—” The otherwise eloquent cop seems to stumble over his words but Sakura gets his gist without further explanation and leans over toward a drawer to his side.

“Oh! Yes! Of course,” she laughs thinly as she rummages through various kitchen utensils before quickly finding her object of desire. As she hands him the plastic wrapper, Kakashi scowls briefly while tearing it open. “You keep them in the kitchen?”

“ _Better safe than sorry, right?_ ” The words have left her mouth before she can even think. Déjà-vu is merciless however and sucker punches her flat out as she realises that she’s had this exact conversation before. With another cop on the other side of town.

Kakashi snorts and avoids her gaze as he chuckles mirthlessly, “Funny, my partner says the same thing all the time.”

Sakura stiffens for the fraction of a second as the wind is knocked out of her lungs.

_This means nothing, it’s a_ very _common idiom_ , her brain tries to reason but sudden panic makes her skin prickle.

If Kakashi notices her inner conflict he doesn’t let on. His hand comes up to cup her face as he carefully lines himself up with her heat and catches her eye. The feeling of him brushing over her is almost enough to wipe her mind of worry and guilt entirely, it only needs the chaste feathering of a kiss on her swollen lips to do the rest.

“I have a rule, too,” he says.

But the words hardly register as she is finally rewarded when he sinks into her, and she is numb with feeling. Deaf and content with the euphoria of utter completion as she clings to him. Sakura can only listen in earnest to the low moan from the back of his throat as it intertwines with her breathless cry, because she knows somewhere deep inside her that she’s heard it a thousand times before.

Almost painfully her nails dig into his back and Kakashi doesn’t move when he is buried to the hilt inside her. He wants to draw this out just for a handful of heartbeats longer. Just a little more bliss over bitterness for now.

To bridge the moment, to buy himself time, he catches her mouth in a kiss. A few kisses. Soft and wet and forgiving of a crime neither acknowledges to have been committed.

When her legs tighten around his waist and her ankles cross over themselves, urging him quietly to move, he murmurs against her mouth at last, “Don’t _ever_ lie to me.

I don’t care about the answer, as long as it’s truthful. Just do _not_ lie to me. Promise?”

Sakura feels like her heart screeches to a halt from beating a thousand times per second and she cannot answer him. Doesn’t know how. All forms of communication are suddenly foreign to her and her brain seems out of order. Sage green eyes stare up at him wide and frozen and for once, Kakashi finds her honest.

As telling as her silence may be, he _needs_ her to answer. If he agreed to all of her conditions, she can do this for him. A swift snap of his hips kickstarts her lungs, her heart and her voice back into motion and the feeling of her squeezing tightly around him corresponds with the chopped moan rising from her chest.

“Do you promise?” Kakashi presses insistently and picks up a rhythm that makes Sakura’s eyes roll into the back of her head.

“Yes,” she sighs obediently and pleads against his mouth like she’s in prayer, “I promise.”

It is all he wants; all he desires beside her.

With every languid thrust Kakashi feels like Sakura melts into him further. Her kisses reach deeper and her chest presses up tighter against him with each breath. He drinks in every single one of her sounds, like nectar. Straight from the source, straight from her mouth.

She pulls on his hair as if to see how tightly they are rooted in his head. It’s like gasoline on the fire burning in his chest. Their teeth knock together in their rising frenzy and neither can help but think in their fog how different this is to their first time.

The last time they had sex, Sakura thought she finally understood what harmony and intimacy meant. Now she thinks she knows what connection and fervour mean.

Her lungs stutter and she struggles to breathe through her sighs and sobs when she comes. He can feel her hands shake as she presses her palm to his chest and her fingertips to his scalp. Sakura can feel his hips jerk and as he gasps a soft curse into the crook of her neck when he joins her in climax, she gets this tight pull on her stomach again that sends a lump into her throat and tears to sting her eyes.

* * *

Kakashi leans over the edge of her bed to find his jeans. Patting down the denim he listens for the crinkle of paper and feels for the shape of his lighter.

“Absolutely not,” Sakura growls without sparing him a glance, lying flat on her belly with her head turned away from him. “Don’t you dare smoke in here.”

A grin curves his mouth immediately. With the crumpled pack in his hands he rolls back and leans over her, to ghost a kiss on her shoulder blade. It’s placatory and Sakura twitches her shoulder but he won’t be deterred and brushes his fingertips over her bare lower back studying her face. “Then where can I smoke?”

The only answer he gets is a silent nod toward the balcony doors visible from the bed. When he doesn’t make a move, Sakura opens one eye begrudgingly. It’s pissing down rain.

She glances at Kakashi and is met with expectant pleading eyes and a grin that should be illegal. _Well?_

With a groan Sakura shuffles and pushes herself off the bed, “Only this one time.”

Slapping his wandering hands away playfully, she picks a large t-shirt off the floor and slips it over on her way out of the bedroom. An absent thought nags at the edge of her conscious that she doesn’t remember buying this t-shirt. It’s a band shirt. A men’s one at that.

For now, she shoves the thought to the back burner and focuses on finding the single ash tray she owns. It comes to light behind an ugly, _ugly_ vase her mother insisted on giving her when she moved into this apartment, but Sakura doesn’t think of that.

_Since when do I own a Guns ‘N’ Roses shirt?_

Kakashi has already lit his cigarette when she returns to him, leaned against the headboard he accepts the crystal ash tray she hands him.

“If I’m already letting you smoke in here, then give me one, too,” she demands while making herself comfortable next to him.

He hands her the pack and the lighter but scowls. “Do you smoke?”

“No.” But she doesn’t cough when she lights it and Kakashi nudges her with his elbow.

“Hey, no lies.”

“I don’t. Not anymore. It’s a bad habit,” she deadpans but her tone is light and she grins at him when she blows out the smoke. He returns her grin and decides to let it slide. _Not anymore_ is kind of a grey area anyway.

They smoke in silence for a few moments, until Kakashi inhales deeply.

“Hey Sakura,” he starts and leans his head back against the headboard.

“Yeah?” Her tone is absent. She’s mentally far away, still hung up on where the fuck she got this damn t-shirt.

“Are you seeing my partner?”

_Bingo_. _That’s where._

That foolish, strangely romantic asshole had tied the shirt around the food container he gave her, to keep the dinner warm until she made it home.

_Fuck._

Sakura stiffens and her bones feel like lead. _No lies._ _You promised_.

Her breath rattles in her chest and she can feel her ribcage cave in with the strain of anxiety tying itself like around it like barbed wire.

At last, she drags on her cigarette and exhales barely audible, “I don’t know.”

Sakura was married to a shark of a lawyer long enough to know a backdoor when she sees one. It’s not a lie – technically. She doesn’t know who his partner is.

Kakashi knows this too. He could elaborate. She could ask. Neither do.

Instead he leans over and kisses her neck.

“Thanks for letting me smoke in here,” he mumbles, soft. Kind, only his hands holding tightly onto the burning out cigarette stub betray his distress. “Can I sleep here?”

“No,” she says simply, but her hand curves around his head and threads into his hair. “But you will.”

Sakura stubs out her cigarette and kisses him hard before she goes to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, what did you think? things are getting spicy 👀
> 
> on another note...... how cringy do you think karaoke is in fics? and how annoyed would you be with me reusing stupid tropes i like? because i've been thinking about a later chapter that features a few songs in the form of karaoke and possibly ends in sakura and ino punching it out on stage idk yet
> 
> anyway, if i get back on the horse writing wise, i have an idea for another story for this throuple/triangle but a bit of a different dynamic. anybody down for that?
> 
> let me know all your thoughts please!!


	8. talk dirty to me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good evening you lovely lovely people, i hope you're all well and staying safe <3
> 
> i'm not here to chat a whole lot BUT i wanted to announce here too, that i started another story for this ot3!
> 
> if you're here, i'm just gonna assume that you're just as hooked on this pairing/throuple as i am and i would therefore really love for you to check out this new story of mine 🥺 it's called ['what's the harm?'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121328/chapters/55324123) and kakashi and sakura are married in this one, but oh what's that? genma is in love with his best friend's wife? oh boy.
> 
> i think you guys are going to really enjoy the dynamics in this one. it's very much #unrequited love #... or is it? 👀 
> 
> AND since it was my birthday on the 25th feb (deadass forgot to mention that in my last A/N lol, i'm 23 now) it would be an absolutely lovely birthday gift if you could leave me a review <3
> 
> anyway~ this chapter threw me for a loop. AGAIN. i swear i think i have control over my kakashi move and then he just goes rogue lmao
> 
> now, on with the spicy shit. enjoy.

“Sakura?” His voice is raspy and fresh with sleep when it tickles her ear. Gentle and slumber soft, but Sakura doesn’t care for it.

Her brows knit together in obvious displeasure, and she keeps her eyes stubbornly shut. Like he’s no more than a troublesome insect, her hand comes up and sways uselessly in the air trying to shoo him away.

Kakashi isn’t deterred. Persistent and patient as ever, he grins and lets the arm that was curled around her in a deep embrace, slowly unfurl. She doesn’t seem to mind; her face is relaxed and peaceful again. Still pressed against her back, he now traces the gentle line of her solar plexus down to her navel. He’s got a theory. When he travels lower, past the imaginary line between her hipbones, Sakura stirs. Theory proved.

“Sakura,” he starts again, and she groans in answer. Still she won’t open her eyes, but instead of trying to shake him off again, she stretches and Kakashi highly appreciates how her behind presses into his groin as her back arches.

“What?” Even with her jaw slack from sleep the bite in her tone is sharp as knives. It’s beginning to grow on him; she’s charming in a bristly way. With every moment spent with her, Kakashi understands why she found it funny when he called her angelic.

“I’ve got to leave soon,” he murmurs into the nape of her neck, kissing the fuzz there. The developing hickey close to her spine, too.

“So?” But her pine green eyes open slowly, blearily, to blink against the streaming in sunlight and steal a glance at the alarm clock on her nightstand. His caressing touch along her waist and stomach, she seems to ignore entirely. “What time is it?”

“Almost seven,” Kakashi supplies. Her growing disregard for his tenderness is beginning to slightly annoy him and he decides to change tactic. He isn’t her toy and he won’t let her think that. So, he pulls her in tight and does so roughly. A surprised hitch of her breath is her only response, but she doesn’t have much time to react really. Because now he’s rolling his hips into hers and her breath catches fully in her throat when he growls into her ear, “What do you mean ‘So?’, huh? Don’t you want me here?” For good measure, Kakashi pinches her side and bites the junction of her neck and shoulder.

Sakura is hardly even awake, but she can very clearly feel herself coming alive from the loins up. Her stomach is flipping around, the rougher he handles her and when his teeth graze her skin, she’s practically purring her excuse, “No, no, that’s not—”

“That’s not what you meant?” He teases and grips her hip to hold her in place. Sakura can feel his erection slide languidly against her folds and her whole chest shudders with a rattly moan, muffled as she’s pressing her face toward her pillow. Kakashi is relentless though and grinds. “Then what did you mean, Sakura?”

The way he says her name should be illegal. It makes her pull tight in every conceivable way and her hips roll back toward him without her express permission like she’s a cat in heat.

“Kakashi,” she whines into the silk of her pillowcase, but he brushes her hair from her face tenderly. As though the head of his cock isn’t twitching and bumping against her clit with every rigid rocking of his hips.

"Yes?" His voice is practically syrupy in its sweetness, but the grin against her ear is so dirty, it's properly indecent.

Sakura had no idea Kakashi had this sort of… play in him, and to be honest, neither did he.

She's thrilled. And wet; positively dripping the harder her grinds against her.

Kakashi notices this too, the slip against her is growing easier by the seconds. Delight is the least of his emotions in this moment and it takes him a moment to realise that this newfound assertion is not just born out of thin air.

She draws it from him. Her ferocity, her bite, her brattiness – they all pull a sense of spite from deep beneath his guts that he's long forgotten about. A fickle but lively little thing that he can feel in every nerve ending, and it's exciting.

"Do you want me here?" He hisses into her ear.

It's a dare. One aimed at her colossal, ugly pride that nested itself in her throat ever since she forgot her watch and was forced to come back to him again. Kakashi doesn't know whether he should be offended or enraged by it. The quiet flicker of pure, unadulterated fear, that he managers to glimpse in split seconds behind her irises though, appeals soothingly to the temper of either emotion.

Her teeth sink into her bottom lip now and Sakura has to put in effort to swallow down the desperate howl of a 'god yes!' that instinctively rises in her throat. It's none of his business how heavy her heart aches for him, and Sakura is still trying to convince herself that it's none of hers either.

A handful of deliberate, heavy breaths later, she twists. Just slightly. Just enough. Enough for her viridian gaze to find his. Once it does, it flips the script. So now Kakashi is the one that has to swallow down despair and longing. The urge to kiss her, devour her, worship her by the mouth, is blinding but that's not part of the game they're playing. And Kakashi has never lost a game, if he could help it.

Her body is still pressed flush against his from pelvis to shoulder and she can feel his heart beat throb against the apex of her thighs with every twitch of his dick. She grins and the mischief burns bright and white hot in her eyes. "Yes. I want you here," she hushes in a low rumble akin to a tiger's chuff, "You know where else I want you?"

Kakashi almost snorts, but he has a fire sure feeling that this would ruin the sweet tension grazing on his every muscle right then and there. Instead of jumping to her plain, and quite plump, bait, he chooses a more 'hands on' approach. Literally.

His fingertips are skating across her upper thigh and this time he does not beat around the bush as he slips around it to access her sweetest place from behind her. His knuckles brush her lips and she almost jerks into the touch longingly. Swollen and hard, the rough pads of his fingers practically bump against her clitoris and he revels in her body's immediate response when he swirls around it. Once, twice, three times. Each lap corresponds so lovely to the intensity of her groans.

When he parts her lips and slides along her slit, brushing himself in the process, Sakura's eyes roll into the back of her head and now her face is eerily close to the one she made at him when he first tried to wake her.

"I have a pretty good idea where you want me," he chuckles darkly against her cheekbone and Sakura responds with a breathless laugh. His fingers don't stop their path and the sound of amusement morphs in her throat by the pace of his hands. It elongates and billows into a drawn out sigh, as easy as his fingers slipping inside her.

Kakashi pumps his hand a number of times and observes her chest heaving and shaking with attentive eyes before descending on her neck to bite and tease. As much as he would love for her to come by just his hands, he feels ready to burst against her heated skin and the minutes tick by faster than he would like.

As though she would come up for air from her ocean of bliss, Sakura's eyes flutter open in tandem with her mouth. The moan released from her throat could shake furniture and it vibrates right through Kakashi's bones. As long as he gets to hear this on a regular basis, he'll obey any rule she puts on him.

Even if her eyes are heady and clouded, her mind is sharp and running at a million miles a minute. As per usual. She did not forget that he woke her up because he's on a time crunch, after all it's a rarity she isn't the one being chased by the clock.

Her eyes zero in on him now and Kakashi can feel her gaze burn like hot wire. Instead of untwisting out of his grip and forcing them to abandon their spooning position, Sakura cranes her neck and digs her fingers into his hair before she pulls him down to her level.

The kiss is hungry and whatever last fogginess of sleep there is, is wiped away with the swipe of Kakashi’s tongue over Sakura’s bottom teeth. As though he’s gained momentum through the kiss, he’s essentially thrusting his fingers into her while he continues to curl them and Sakura struggles to keep her sanity together, not to mention breath in her lungs.

Boneless but determined her arm extends over the edge of the bed and she reaches blindly for the open drawer of her nightstand. Bare moments pass but it might as well be eons until she feels and hears the plastic crinkling she is searching for. Without a further word she practically thrusts the condom at him; in her fervor she doesn’t realize that he has to withdraw his busy hand and a pathetic mewl escapes her throat at the loss.

Gracious and giving, he simply cannot bear to have her wanting for long and therefore he makes haste in putting the condom on. Before long Sakura can feel him provide the pressure she longs for at her entrance and her nails dig deep into her linens. At a pace so slow it's virtually glacial, Kakashi sinks into her.

She can feel him inch for inch; despite having experienced this more than enough times throughout the past evening, it still feels absolutely novel and gratifying beyond measure to her. Something about the way he fits inside her so perfectly, fills her up _so_ exquisitely, is simply otherworldly to her. Like a cog slotting into its place, Sakura turns her head again when his hips roll and Kakashi's mouth is on hers at once.

This kiss is feverish but tender. Smouldering and raw. The way their kisses always are when he first moves into her. Besides her loins, her heartstrings pull tight too, every time.

Where Sakura feels the tightness in her chest, Kakashi feels it in his belly. It's thrilling but kind of nauseating. Kind of like butterflies. _But it's not butterflies_. _No,_ definitely not _butterflies. And if they are, she won't hesitate to exterminate them._

When he pulls her harder into him by her hip, to dispel any lightheadedness as if to use her like an anchor, Sakura pants a moan into his mouth and it breaks the spell of affection along with the kiss. Like the wind changing direction, they gain heat and their pace picks up. The flat of his palm pressing gently against her shoulder blade is enough for Sakura to get the hint and she rolls on her stomach, gripping the edge of her pillow as she feels his weight settle back on top of her.

Her sheets swallow most of her moan and her hips rise off the mattress immediately to meet him halfway thrust for thrust. Kakashi supports himself with his left hand settled next to her mess of pink curls as the other presses against the headboard. The further she spreads her thighs for him, the deeper he reaches inside of her and dark, throaty groans drip from his mouth like pine syrup. It sends a shudder down her spine like pearls rippling off a necklace; it's so vivid, he can feel it through her.

When her sighs and sobs grow higher and higher pitched, the lower he comes down to her until his forehead rests against the back of her neck and she can feel his hot breath stroking along her vertebrae. Sakura's own face is buried flushed and scrunched in pleasure into her pillows, but as the coil tightens further and further in her belly, the urge to see his face becomes unbearable.

"Kakashi," she chokes out between a sigh and hitch of breath, "I– I want to–" Her voice breaks but he understands her wordlessly and halts in his ferocious pace. He doesn't slip out of her immediately, but takes the liberty instead to deliver one deep grind that makes her fist deep into the silk of her pillow case, before releasing her to turn onto her back.

He doesn't know which of her limbs is faster: her legs wrapping around his waist as she pulls him back into her or her arms around his neck to crush his lips to hers. Sakura bites and soothes and plunders and pillages his mouth. It feels almost like assault, weren't it so greedy, sexy and, dare he say, _heartfelt._

Because he understands; it's an unwritten language she's speaking to him with her hungry kisses and eager angling of her hips. One he would understand blind, deaf and senseless.

It's only when his heartbeat races and burns in his chest with his impending climax, that he breaks away from her. Matching him beat for beat, her own breathing is shallow, shuddery and rapid as she begins sobs out his name when the tide breaks over her. Just as every single time in the night before and the first time they spent together, it's his undoing.

Delirious and basking in her afterglow, Sakura doesn't listen to him at first when he finally catches his breath enough to speak. Her blood still rushes louder in her ears anyway. It takes him biting her earlobe for her to rise back to the surface and pay him proper attention, and weren't it for the slight twitch of his brow she'd almost think he'd let it get to his head.

"Did you listen at all to me?"

"Honestly? No," she deadpans but they both break into a small burst of laughter. He's still inside her and the shaking of their laughter almost makes her eyes roll back into her head again. "Was it important?"

"Depends. How bad do you want your watch back?" At that her green irises lose some of their glassiness and Kakashi feels really terrible about what he's going to say next. "Because I kind of forgot it at my place."

She slaps him over the head without hesitation and to be fair, he can't blame her.

"That was the only reason you came here!"

" _Really_ ," he gives her a pointed look and pushes himself off her for good measure, drawing a groan from each of them as he rolls onto his back. "You gotta be somewhere today?”

Sakura gives him a pointed look but the gears are shifting in her mind already, and she rubs a heavy hand over her face when she thinks in earnest.

“Actually, yes, I do,” Sakura sighs, and Kakashi can’t help but raise a distrusting brow. She pretends to not see it. “I’m meeting my mother for brunch and I got a spin and boxing class from 5 to 7 with my best friend.”

By the way she scrunches up her nose at the mention of her mother, he takes a wild guess that their relationship is less than stellar. And he’d bet good money on her not wanting to talk about it either.

Since it’s not the topic at hand, Kakashi tries to distract her by offering, “I could drop it off on my lunch break around two, if that’s fine with you?”

But Sakura is already distracted enough. Absently she nods in agreement, it fits into her timeline alright, but she doesn’t really pay it any mind. She is far away mentally, and her eyes are trained on the stucco of her ceiling rather than Kakashi rolling off the bed. Now that she remembers that she has to see her mother of all people today, her head and stomach are too full of dread to consider that he might be in company of a certain _someone_ when he makes his drop today.

Sakura is grateful for the diversion of her thoughts provided by the pleasant soreness in her loins, pulling tautly on her muscles when she rolls onto her side to watch Kakashi shimmy into his washed out blue jeans.

The sight of him turning around himself twice in pursuit of his belt draws a giggle from her chest and just like that Sakura is back in the present. The sound of her amusement is light and melodic and positively contagious to the usually gruff, seasoned officer. Where her laugh is round and feminine and sits in her throat, his comes rough but kind from deep in his chest.

“You can take a shower here, if you like,” Sakura offers mildly and props up her head on her palm to make better eye contact with her guest.

But Kakashi shakes his head and begins to button his shirt. First wrong, missing a button, then correctly.

“No, thank you. I’m kind of late as it is.”

The irony of the situation – that he offered this to her the last time, and that she declined, too – isn’t lost on her and Sakura scoffs.

“Oh, and that bothers you now? What about when you were late yesterday?”

“Yesterday I didn’t know just _how_ sourly you were gonna react to me being a little late,” he explains and purposely ignores her eyes narrowing in offense at him calling close to two hours ‘ _a little_ late’, before he continues, gesturing for emphasis with one sock in hand, “ _and_ I’m afraid my partner is actually going to spank me in front of the whole precinct if I’m too late again.”

She wants to be cross, but the picture he paints is just too vivid in her mind and she bursts out laughing, bright and bumbling.

Sakura tells herself she doesn’t know his partner, but the man in her imagination delivering the befitting punishment, strangely enough has shoulder length brunette hair, impossibly soft chocolate eyes and chews on a corny toothpick.

In the meantime of Sakura getting over her laughing fit, Kakashi gathers his shoes from the hall and sinks down on the edge of the bed with a roll of his eyes.

“Ha ha, very funny,” he mocks, an annoyed edge clipping his tone. “I actually mean it though, he _will_.”

“Sounds like a guy after my own heart,” she teases, still chortling and pulls herself up on his shoulder while wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.

“Yeah, yeah you guys would get along great,” he mutters as he ties his shoes, “punctuality is one of the, like, five things Genma _doesn’t_ fuck around with.”

Sakura’s laughter dies in her throat so suddenly that she chokes on it.

Now, _this_ is an instance where Kakashi’s mouth is faster than his brain again and he curses himself for it for the countless time. His certainty on the fact that she is seeing his best friend just rose from an agonising 82% to an asphyxiating 97%. His chest feels tight and he’s got a bitter taste in the back of his throat.

Sakura’s sudden coughing fit doesn’t faze him outwardly in the slightest however, and he just observes her sharply as she scrambles to regain her breath.

“You alright?” he asks her flatly.

_Second chance, Sakura._

But Sakura turns a blind eye to the thorny olive branch. Instead of explaining herself or acknowledging the situation past anything but surface level, she waves him off and nods, croaking out a pathetic, “I’m good.”

A prickling, thick silence envelops them both then, but Kakashi has no time for her bullshit, nor her discomfort. When she won’t meet his eye, he returns to tying his second shoe.

“Right, I better get going,” he concludes into the tense space between them and claps his hands on his thighs before pushing off the bedside. “I’ll text you later, before I come around.”

She nods numbly and forces herself to smile stiffly. Just like last night, anxiety weaves through her ribs like barbed wire and Kakashi’s cold dismissal feels like a scolding up to par with her mother’s.

The bed dips under his weight when he leans down to her one last time.

“See you later, Sakura,” it’s a callous murmur against her lips and the kiss that follows matches in its hard indifference.

“I look forward to it.”

* * *

She doesn’t escort him to the door. As soon as the lock clicks, Sakura is diving for her phone.

**_07:58 AM, Dr. Forehead:_ ** _Fuck spinning, bring whiskey_

**_08:04 AM, Miss Piggy:_ ** _I love it when you talk dirty to me_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> love you lot so much and leave me your thoughts! xx


	9. uncharted waters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> believe your eyes sweet readers, it is real: i have updated between sin and sense. only took me about a couple life times.
> 
> i apologise sincerely for the long delay, i was battling writer's block for this story _hard_ but i bear good news: this got so long while i was writing it (i'm not quite done with the second part but was already at 6k words) so i decided to split it up! the cliff hanger is... well, you decide but this means the next update is not far at all! not even a few days away so tell me how much you yearn for it, maybe i'll be lenient
> 
> okay i'm gonna shut up, but i just have to say that i sincerely think you guys will enjoy this chapter (and the next for that matter) some things developed in this chapter that i hadn't anticipated and uh... i can only say my hand slipped
> 
> alright, enjoy 👀

It’s technically still fifteen minutes too late, but Genma dutifully bites back a groan when he hears the creak of their front door open and the heavy click of it closing, following on its heels. Undisturbed by the time, his commitment to be punctual or _fucking anything_ , Kakashi strolls down the steps toward the beat up, dented sedan, unlit cigarette hanging off the corner of his mouth as he drops into the passenger seat. Albeit glowering over his tardiness, Genma holds out a paper coffee cup to him and Kakashi even musters a smile at the gesture, which falls away again quickly however when his partner retracts the offering immediately and holds the cup out of reach.

At the senior officer’s scowl, the brunette cocks a brow, “Do you have the watch?”

At once Kakashi’s eyes widen, swiftly followed by a heartfelt groan as he reaches straight for the door handle to get out again. Thank god for Genma. Hadn’t Kakashi texted him about it, then the watch would stay a second time on his coffee table. Sakura probably wouldn’t be too lenient if he forgot it _again_ after making an announcement on it. Then again, _what ground does she have to stand on to be lenient with him, and not the other way around?_

He chews on the question as he jogs up the stairs and jams his keys back into the lock to the apartment. On his descent with the antique piece of jewellery in hand he decides that there is no answer to that question and the string of other questions it pulls behind it leaves an acidic taste in his mouth.

Returning no ten minutes later, he holds it into the morning sunlight, letting it twinkle like a beacon when he exits the house the second time that morning. This time when he drops into the threadbare passenger seat Genma hands over the coffee graciously. It’s lukewarm and sweetened. Kakashi grimaces but figures quickly that payback is disgusting and the last coffee he brought his partner was stolen loot he didn’t like either.

Just as he’s about to tug the watch away, the brunette officer nudges his arm, curiously throwing eagle eyes at the dainty wrist band.

“After you made such a fuss about it, can I see?”

Kakashi is reluctant for a split second, purely because it doesn’t belong to him, but the longer he thinks about it, the less of an issue he can see. He’d trust Genma with his life, it’s really not that. After a moment he shrugs and drops it into the outstretched palm before him; just as he lets go, a part of him, a low, dark voice deep in his gut murmurs that this might be a good thing. _If Genma is as good a cop as Kakashi knows him to be, he’ll recognise it soon enough and see it for the clue it is._

Time stands still as an icy sensation rolls down his spine at the realisation. _Was that cruel of him?_

“Looks like it costs more than this car,” Genma murmurs and breaks Kakashi out of his panicked reverie as he twists it this way and that way, inspecting the fine platinum links and the pear and lozenge cut diamonds crusting the dial’s outer ring.

Reflexively Kakashi snorts as he sips on his vile cup of coffee, “I have shoes that are worth more than this car.”

_Line crossed._ It may be a piece of utter junk, but Genma has had this piece of junk since a good decade and lovingly beat every dent into it himself. Kakashi isn’t even allowed to _drive_ it, much less _insult_ it. Glowering at him from the corner of his eye, Genma gingerly hands back the watch and huffs, chewing moodily on his toothpick, “Oh yeah? More of that talk and you can take those shoes and use them to _walk_ to the precinct.”

* * *

The music hums in the background and Kakashi almost finds a moment to zone out into the white noise of the CD and the city around them when Genma breaks their amicable silence at a red light.

“So, how is that going?”

“How is what going?”

The brunette rolls his eyes, really quite sick of Kakashi's faux dumbness, as he elaborates with a groan, “What do you think, idiot? With the girl, of course. You came from hers this morning, huh?”

To that Kakashi can only grimace, almost resembling a grin because while it was definitely a very... satisfying evening and morning, it definitely confirmed a few uncertainties he’d rather have disproved. His silence is misinterpreted though as he catches a dirty grin from his best friend.

“That good, huh?” Unbidden, Genma’s own thoughts begin to drift and unknowingly to him, both men in that moment think of paradise pink tresses and smokey green eyes blinking at them through dark lashes. Swallowing, he bites down on his toothpick before shifting it from one side to the other and picks his initial question up again, “so, how’s it going?”

“It’s casual,” Kakashi shrugs non-committally, suddenly feeling quite sick about the whole thing. While it’s not really much of an answer, Genma lets it slide to Kakashi's luck. After all, what else would he say? He’s in the same boat anyway.

Albeit horribly nauseous, Kakashi can’t help himself. A few moments of silence pass, before he returns Genma’s curiosity. If Sakura isn’t going to be honest with him, he might as well go around her back. Schooling his voice to a nonchalant tone with an iron determination, he pokes, “What about you? Didn’t you say you were seeing that girl from the bar again?”

Genma doesn’t miss a beat.

“I did,” he grins and Kakashi grinds his jaw in an effort not to sigh. His very much insinuating tone is a stab straight between his ribs. As sharp as that pain is, confusion settles quickly into the silence. It’s not exactly Genma’s style to be quiet about these things and while Kakashi can’t say he’s yearning for him to recount how he spent his time with Sakura, this is _strange_. Scowling at him, Kakashi makes a vague hand gesture for him to go on, a glimmer of hope weaseling its way into his subconscious as he prods, “And? What’s up with you, did it go sideways?”

Genma only shrugs and shakes his head, still staying strangely silent.

_Okay_. This is decidedly weird, and a little concerned even, Kakashi nudges him with his elbow.

“Then what? Hey, since when do I have to grill you for details?” Despite all of his nerves standing at full attention, Kakashi even manages a laugh.

Until Genma looks so horribly bashful that is; it’s boyish even to Kakashi’s eyes. _Is he blushing?_

Grinning around his toothpick, Genma shrugs again and sighs, “No, listen. It went great, she’s—” but he cuts himself off and tugs his bottom lip between his teeth. Kakashi has no problem filling in the unsaid words himself; he has a good feeling he knows exactly what Genma was about to say. Making a vague hand gesture the driver shrugs one more time, and then finally meets Kakashi's eye. The senior can’t help but hate the softness he sees in Genma's warm brown eyes. “She’s just really private and asked me to not talk about her. She was pretty serious about it, so I just want to honour her wish, y’know?”

Kakashi smiles even if rage is building up along his spine. It even shoves all the strange feelings for her, that he has no interest in inspecting closer yet, aside in favour of billowing to flame. If Sakura ends up hurting his partner, this will not be pretty. Not for her, not for him, not for Genma.

“I get that,” he says eventually and his ribcage strains under the effort of keeping his emotions contained.

“Out of all people, I figured you would.”

* * *

Her mother was cancelled easily soon after Kakashi’s swift flight that morning. It took really no more than a text and a response voicemail full of thinly veiled disappointment and poised guilt tripping. Even if she wasn’t entirely numb to her mother’s general negativity, Sakura is willing to pay the price today if it means that she wouldn’t have to deal with her on top of stressing about her current situation.

Ever since Kakashi left this morning Sakura has been ill with guilt and anxiety. It sits in her throat and threatens to upturn her stomach any time she even so much as thinks about what Kakashi is currently doing. _Or who he’s with._

Between her shower, inhaling a coffee and pacing her apartment at length, Sakura is almost at the stage of ruining her manicure when the sound of the doorbell sends her nearly into cardiac arrest.

Her hands shake as she presses the buzzer and she slaps her cheeks a couple times with the palm of her hands, trying to redirect her thoughts the same way she had done the past six hours. The best she can do is static, but at this point she even takes that as she listens to his steps on the marble of the old stairwell. The house is old, and she has cursed more than once about the lack of an elevator. She is fit and still breaks a sweat most days when she reaches her home on the fifth floor.

Sakura doesn’t wait for him to use the iron door knocker; she swings the door open just as he ascends the last steps.

“Do you not have to wear a uniform?" she blurts out and to her own surprise, disappointment marks her face with a scowl and colors her voice as he crosses the last few strides between them. Kakashi huffs a mirthless laugh when she lets the door falls shut behind him.

“Hello to you too, and _no_. I’m not a beat cop anymore,” he bites right back spitefully. Some of the anger of this morning still simmers in his veins, but he tries to conceal it and the corner of his mouth swiftly lifts skyward in a grin. She sees the strain of it in the crinkle of his eyes and bristles immediately, crossing her arms over her chest like armor. “But I still have the uniform from my dog days if you’re interested.”

“What, you still fit into it?”

Sakura's anxiety makes her unpleasant, to say the least. It voices itself in anger and snappiness and she’s been nothing but a ball of anxiety all morning.

“ _What was that?_ ” Kakashi’s slate grey eyes narrow into slits and his tone is sharp. Where anger sat before, her belly is suddenly flooded with an entirely different kind of heat at the edge of his voice. Maybe if she plays her cards right, she can direct her fire elsewhere? “Say Sakura, did I do something to you that made you so mouthy with me?”

Or not. If there’s one thing that sparks her rage it is condescension.

“ _Mouthy_?” The word catches on her teeth as she spits it straight back at him.

As soon as he said it, he knew it was wrong. Sakura’s own eyes are now narrowed threateningly and her gaze pierces him like hot bullets. He’s been shot a handful of times, he should know. The green of her irises glints with something dangerous and sharp, and Kakashi can’t honestly tell if the clenching of his stomach is in excitement or fear. All he knows is that this was a bad choice of words.

Shifting her weight, she uncrosses her arms as she settles her hands loosely on her hips. Something swift moves behind her eyes and he isn't sure he quite caught _what_ it was. It’s only obvious that her strategy has changed. Within the fraction of a second the threat from her posture is gone, but he doesn't let himself breathe just yet. For good reason.

“Is that what I am, Kakashi?” She all but purrs back at him, and his knees threaten to buckle under him at the unexpectedly velvety voice.

Underlining her dulcet, yet slightly biting, tone her eyes grow wide in mock innocence as she slinks forward, invading his personal space. Kakashi grinds his jaw with each of her steps. He fights the overwhelming heat pooling in his loins with reminding himself of the anger he felt this morning and even earlier, when he left her apartment.

But all his efforts are pathetic against her touch. When her hands come to rest on his chest, smoothing over the wrinkled button down, it sets off a rockslide of desire inside him. Subconsciously he builds himself up taller under her touch. He won't be tripped by his lust and longing for her.

If she wants to play, _he can play_.

Regarding her carefully, he raises his hand to her face and catches her chin between his thumb and index finger curled underneath it. She tries to conceal it, tries to keep the upper hand but Sakura’s breath hitches audibly. She isn’t deterred, ignores her faux pas and only ups the ante as she peers up at him through her lashes, seemingly demure yet challenging.

The look alone that she gives him clouds his vision, but the words tumbling off her plush pout next make him feel downright feral.

“Are you going to punish me now? Spank me until I learn to hold my tongue?”

Kakashi is no stranger to dirty talk and is well aware of how much impact even simple words can have, but up until now no one has proven this to him quite like that. No one has made him feel like she does right then. This is uncharted waters for him though, this has never been his kink — well, up until now. Gathering all his willpower, he swallows hard to not outright growl. This tension lives from power play, and his instincts are practically screaming at him to assert his dominance right then.

Buying himself time, he grinds his jaw once more before schooling his features. Sakura feels hot under her collar and where his fingers touch her chin, she is sure her skin is scorched.

She has _never_ partaken in dominant and submissive role-play, least of all being the submissive party. She is the one to decide, she is the one in control, she is the superior at work and in private. After her failed marriage that left her feeling weak and floating, she vowed to never be put at another man’s mercy. Sakura wouldn’t have dreamed to ever willingly indulge in a dynamic like this, far less expect to be rendered absolutely blind with lust. _Yet here she is._

Her silk panties stick to her from how gushingly wet and hot she is, and all her anxiety slipped off of her tongue along with her coaxing taunt.

Kakashi doesn’t dare take his eyes off her for even a second as he slips his hand along her jaw down to the back of her neck to gather a fistful of her hair. At once Sakura’s breath grows shallow and he can watch her pupils dilate as her lips part. Is she as surprised as him by how much this is turning her on? Even through all the layers of clothes Kakashi can smell her and it is overwhelmingly intoxicating. He came here to hand over the watch and talk to her about Genma, but now she is driving him insane and he finds himself helpless to resist her.

“You certainly deserve punishment,” he murmurs, not thinking about his words as he lets instinct guide him. Sakura thinks her knees might give out under her and is almost glad when his other hand comes to rest on her hip, sliding over the curve of her ass as he grips her hard. Kakashi can see it too as her eyes nearly roll to the back of her head when his tone drops low. “Don’t you think, Sakura?”

Her pulse skyrockets at the way he says her name and Kakashi is pleased to watch her. Watch the way her chest begins to heave and her lashes flutter, how her throat bobs when she swallows, and the way Sakura strains against his grip to nod obediently.

That’s not enough though, he wants to _hear_ her.

Licking his lips, he shakes his head and Sakura scowls petulantly, struggling once more against his steady grip.

“Ah, ah, ah use your words,” he scolds, and her nails dig into his shirt as she bites back a near _whimper_.

Taking a couple deep but shuddery inhales and exhales, Sakura eventually agrees breathily, “ _Yes_ , I think I deserve punishment.”

It comes so naturally to him, Kakashi almost feels like he is having an extraordinarily erotic out of body experience, when he leans down to her and rasps into her ear, " _Good girl._ "

Pleased his lips curl into a grin at her earlobe when a strangled moan escapes her throat, and she grows limp for just a breath beneath his fingers. Her thighs rub against each other without her express permission, simply guided by her blind pursuit of friction. He feels it too, the burning urge searing his loins to grind and thrust. Bury himself to the hilt inside her as she begs him to have mercy with her.

And he would be merciful, would gladly take her right here against the hallway wall until she digs and grows boneless but he’s here on a mission. At the desperate, pleading look in her glazed over eyes Kakashi is struck by a vision of this morning. Instead of heated green, soft brown stares back at him and a twist of anger weaves itself into the all-consuming flame of his arousal.

She awaits his next move with shallow, bated breath, her imagination running wild into every direction of the wind about what will happen next.

When his measured addendum sounds at her ear, even in his gravelly voice, Sakura nearly screams in frustration.

“Not today though.”

Her shoulders slump immediately and to add insult to injury he lets go of her hair too, leaving her to dig her previously slack fingers into his shirt even harder than before. She never thought she could act quite so desperate with a man again, be so blinded with unbridled desire, but before she realizes it, she whines urgently and out of breath, “Why not?”

“First of all, you were being an impertinent little _brat_ today,” Kakashi scolds darkly and Sakura can’t help but bite her lip in shame as heat spikes in her core anew, only drawing another bitten back whimper from her. It's pathetic how much she aches for him and how much she enjoys being called a _brat_. She never considered herself spoilt or bratty whatsoever, not when she always stood in continuous comparison to her best friend. But in this context? Sakura can’t say she rejects it.

Desperately she considers her options and searching his face with hazy eyes and her brows drawn together. It’s not too long until she comes to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, he _wants_ her to beg. That maybe it is just a matter of coaxing him, of acting out until he loses control — _god, how she would like that_ — but Sakura takes no action when she spies something quite cold in Kakashi’s gaze.

Suddenly her breath grows shallow again, but out of entirely different reasons as her anxiety creeps up the back of her neck again. Trying to keep it coy, to not let on that she noticed the shift, she breathes, “And secondly?”

In a matter of seconds Kakashi went from the smouldering, dominant lover in her home to the jaded cop that left her house this morning with hard kisses and betrayal etched in his eyes. All arousal flees her at the realization, and she feels cold when he extracts his hands fully from her form to shove them into his pockets.

“Secondly, I don’t have much time,” he says, and Sakura knows she’d rather not hear the next part. “Genma is waiting in the car for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....................so, what are you guys feeling? thinking? favourite parts? just incoherent yelling? i wanna hear it all, give it to me
> 
> and btw if you're as hot for this throuple as i am, check out my other two stories featuring these three <3


	10. guilty as charged

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me posting this chapter like
> 
> you guys were so generous with your ferocious feedback, i just couldn't hold out any longer. if you thought kakashi was just gonna leave her like that, then you're in for a ride my dudes

Time slows to a stop as Sakura’s mind hurries to catch up with crisis management. Her breath sticks to the back of her throat like glue and she feels herself choking on her anxiety as she stands rooted to the spot.

Is there any point in hiding it any longer? He knew since this morning, she is sure of that, and Sakura has felt wretched since she had the first inkling of this being the truth anyhow. She should feel relief, no? Be free of her secret and let him make the decision on whether he wants to keep seeing her. It’s simple as that, they haven't known each other very long at all and dating was never even on the table. She almost tells him this, but no sound makes it past her tightly shut lips as she stares back into his even, closed off gaze.

If it is so easy, then where is her relief?

“Sakura,” he starts and she almost flinches when he crosses his arms over his chest, “You broke my rule. You lied to me.”

“Well—” she wants to amend that _technically_ she didn’t lie, but Kakashi sees right through her and his gaze strikes her silent again. A clump forms in her throat and her eyes sting when she swallows it. At last, she averts her gaze to her parquet flooring and near whispers, “I need my watch back.”

Wordlessly he retrieves the piece of jewellery from the pocket of his jeans, but when Sakura reaches for it he catches her wrist instead. She doesn’t object, her shame forcing her into blind submission to his gentle touch.

Kakashi treats her like porcelain as he turns her wrist around and snaps the closure of her watch into place for her. When she pulls her hand back hesitantly, his own slip back into his pockets while he regards her silently.

After a few deafeningly quiet minutes, she begins to squirm and Sakura decides then that she wants him out. This is ugly, but she’d rather break it off like this while she still can. While it is easy and there are no tears, no hurt feelings. As unattached as she can make herself believe.

Yet when she opens her mouth to ask him to leave, her tongue betrays her and her voice comes low as she keeps her gaze downcast, “What do you want from me, Kakashi?”

He expected bite, she expects rejection.

Neither comes true. The officer in her home only sighs deep before he moves slowly; his hand raises and once more he cups her face. His thumb strokes over her chin and jawline, and finally Sakura raises her eyes to him.

Her walls aren’t exactly down, but the deeper Kakashi peers into her peridot eyes, the more he thinks that he can catch that hurt she’s trying to overplay. He knew this before, but it still feels vile to have his suspicions about her confirmed. She is not confident, she did not heal from all her hurt just yet. For now Sakura is an animal hiding away to lick her wounds in peace. And he disturbs that.

It should make him feel guilty, but Kakashi deliberately considers himself in too deep now to back out. He can’t deny himself the pleasure, and the _warmth,_ she brings him. Even if she lies, even if other’s bask in her glow.

“All I want is your honesty,” he rumbles soothingly. She resists the urge to double over, nauseous with guilt. Even if neither voice: it, they share a thought: _Have we really only known each other a couple weeks? It feels like life times._

Sakura is jaded and bitter though, her voice shakes with acidity when she prods at his gentle confession, “Even if I’m fucking your partner?”

Maybe she’s just trying to shove him away, force him to reject her so she can at least hate him a little, like she hates her ex husband.

To hear her say it, confirm it so callously, _hurts_. Kakashi can’t deny that, but as he suppresses a flinch, he notes inwardly that the pain of her lying about it was worse still than this brash admission of guilt.

In answer, Kakashi returns his other hand to her waist as he draws her in close and Sakura furrows her brows, not trusting of this gentle response at all.

“You said it yourself,” he shrugs and Sakura’s breath hitches when he draws her face close. _So close_. She can feel his breath on her lips. “We’re not dating. Are you dating Genma?”

Sakura is quick to shake her head, even with his hand still cupping her jaw. Relief begins to flood her slowly; it’s a trickle down her spine at first but she can feel the stream steady as her lips brush his when she speaks, “No, I’m not dating Genma.”

“Then, it’s just sex.”

Even if he does not feel confident in this, even if it rips him apart, he pretends to be sure, pretends to want it like this. And Sakura jumps to it, clothes herself in his security.

“Yes, just sex. No feelings,” she confirms, out of breath as if she just ran a mile. All doubt of her true wishes and his assessments is wiped from his mind when she reaches up into his roots and closes the meagre distance between them. Her lips taste vaguely of iron, from biting them raw all day, but Kakashi can’t object to it; her taste is still addicting.

Just like before, his hand slides from her jaw into her hair and he manoeuvres her head with ease to deepen the kiss. At the touch of his tongue against hers, she releases a strangled sigh and Kakashi growls — all the anticipation and arousal wells up in him again, swift and bubbling like a hot spring. Judging by the way she drags on his hair and presses herself against him, Sakura too is painfully aware of the wetness soaking her panties still.

He devours her mouth with increasing hunger, steering her further into the hallway until she gasps for breath and her shoulder blades hit the drywall.

“Kakashi,” she pants, and he groans as he drags his teeth across her jawline down to her pulse point. Her heart rate spikes under it like a rabbit’s and her words come out choppy yet teasing, “will you punish me now?”

Even through the thick layers of fabric separating them, Sakura can feel his erection twitch at her words and it sends a jolt like electricity through her loins. She clenches desperately around nothing, and prays silently into his mouth that he’ll relieve her aching soon. Yet a voice inside her _begs_ for him to make her suffer for as long as possible — as long as he pleases. Make her his toy for playing with him in the first place. Maybe she actually wishes for that just a little more.

“Well,” he hums darkly, and the sudden drop in his voice makes a shiver zigzag down Sakura's spine. His hand slips past the small of her back to her ass again, and his large hand is rough in its squeeze when he chides, “for lying to me you will be disciplined in a special manner.”

“I will?” she sighs hopefully. Her mind so soon so hazy with lust again, she has a hard time believing that just moments ago she was near paralysed with fear.

Kakashi’s still got an ace up his sleeve, but even he can’t deny surprise over just how quickly he slipped into this new found role again. How easily it comes to him and how achingly hard this kinky play makes him. Sakura’s desperate little sounds and wanton grinding as she drags her heel up his calf are dizzying. He almost forgets that Genma is waiting just downstairs for him and that this issue is not quite resolved just yet.

In the moment though he lets himself have this, just for a bit as he pulls her hips harshly against his and feels her every curve against his front. The pressure of her body and the heavy denim of his jeans provide some urgently needed friction against his achingly hard length. Sakura whimpers when he growls in pleasure and Kakashi can’t help but feel like the big bad wolf about to devour his pliant prey — that shouldn’t be as exhilarating to him as it is.

Smoothly he disentangles his hand from her disheveled locks and Sakura can’t catch up with how fast he’s got her wrists gathered to pin them above her head against the wall. A gasp bursts past her kiss bruised lips and Kakashi could get drunk on how her eyes glaze over when he sneaks his other hand beneath her skirt to feather touches over her dripping wet folds. Her head smacks back against the wall at the contact and her moan nearly swallows his curse when he brushes his thumb lightly over her clit down to her entrance. His fingers come back soaked and Kakashi has to exercise full restraint over his being to not just sink to his knees and drink her in until she cries.

“Look at you, princess,” he rasps at her ear again, his voice strained with his own hunger. Sakura keens deliriously at the pet name and tilts her hips into his touch unbidden. He tuts at that because Kakashi is cruel; both to himself and her. When he presses his thumb to her sensitive bundle, his fingers slick with her arousal, he keeps his circles firm yet slow. Not enough for her to be relieved, but just enough to draw more of those sweet, achingly needy sounds from her. “You’re _so_ wet, Sakura. You made a whole mess of yourself,” he murmurs darkly and Sakura’s head lolls uselessly on her shoulders as she meets his heavy gaze. While his thumb continues to lazily circle her clothed pearl, his middle finger slides along her slit and applies just the lightest amount of pressure at her entrance. Her walls flutter at even the minor intrusion of his finger and the fabric of her panties; it earns herself a tutting click of his tongue from him. “ _Such_ a mess. You’re so needy, Sakura, you act as if I didn’t make you cum at all this morning. Just what am I to do with you like this?”

Words, coherence for that matter, escape her and her lashes flutter. She wants _more_. More pressure, more touches, more kisses, more _heat_. Just as she gathers her wits enough to _beg_ him, plead with him instead of whimper nonverbally, is she interrupted by the officially worst sound in the world to her: The utmost penetrant ringer of his cellphone.

It drones in her ears like a siren and she sobs in protest, struggling against his still firm grip to stop him, when he retracts his hand from beneath her skirt to answer.

“ _Quiet_ ,” he warns and his tone leaves no room for discussion. Another spike of heat flares in her belly at the command and her thighs squeeze together desperately. Yet she doesn’t dare defy him. Even in her fog of desire she knows exactly _why_ she is to be quiet, and obediently sinks her teeth into her bottom lip to keep from making any noise.

As his still slick thumb hovers over the screen he mouths to her “ _good girl_ ” again and Sakura’s eyes practically roll into the back of her head. _What on god’s green earth did he do to her?_

He swipes haphazardly over the display to accept the call yet gives the person on the other end of the line no chance to get a word in edgewise.

“Genma, what the fuck?” Kakashi barks into the receiver and Sakura’s inner walls flutter at the hoarseness of his voice. It’s dangerously arousing to know she’s still getting to him so much like this, even when he acts in control and unaffected.

What she isn’t prepared for though — as if she was prepared for _any_ of this — is how obnoxiously loud his phone is set even when it isn’t on speaker. She can’t keep a surprised little moan from spilling past her lips when a familiar voice rings loud and clear from the device. Kakashi pins her with a warning glare and Sakura bites down on her lower lip again, shame burning in her glassy pine green eyes.

**_“Hatake, get your ass down here! I didn’t sacrifice my lunch break so you can get laid!”_** Genma’s tone is sharp and irritated, and Kakashi watches closely how Sakura’s thighs rub together at his best friend’s voice. He should hate this, should feel that same stabbing pain in his gut again as he did at her confession, but— _well_ — he just _doesn’t_. It’s just not there. _The fuck?_

He finds, the opposite really as it sends a flare of heat down his spine, straight to his cock.

He’ll have to deal with that later, for now he just needs to keep this conversation going if it is doing even a fraction of _that_ to her.

“Oh, _please,_ ” Kakashi scoffs into the receiver, not letting his grip on Sakura’s wrist loosen for even a second. “How many times have I sat in a bar, pouring drinks down my guzzle so you could eat a girl out in the back of the cruiser?”

Sakura squirms against his grip again when a memory of Genma’s pretty face between her thighs and all the wicked things his tongue did to her, penetrates her mind. Kakashi arches an eyebrow at her questioningly and she swallows hard, both in shame as in desire.

_**“Not the same thing, Kakashi, and you know it. Don’t be a martyr,”**_ his partner groans and Sakura squeezes her eyes shut. Even tighter when Genma speaks again, _**“Now hang up and finish her off, what kind of an asshole are you even answering the phone right now?”**_

Kakashi snorts but leaves it at that, hanging up on him without another word. Sakura’s breath catches in her throat at the unreadable, but decidedly _heated_ look in his eyes as he gazes down at her with his chin raised.

“I’m just going to ignore how much you got off on his voice,” Kakashi teases darkly. Warning yet amusement play around the corners of his mouth when he grins crookedly at her. Immediately a furious flush mottles Sakura’s already burning cheeks as she blinks at him shamefully through her lashes. _Guilty as charged._ “He is right though, I really should get back to work, I’m still on duty after all.”

She makes no attempt at hiding her frenzied objection, trying to loop her foot around his leg again in an attempt to drag him back in and make him continue.

Her voice is bordering on whiny when she hurries to keep him right where he is, “But he also said to finish me off, no?”

The devious smirk gracing his face then makes her feel both feverish and freezing. Circling her hipbone with his thumb, the officer leans in close and a shudder shakes her body from her crown to her toes as his breath hits her earlobe.

“But only good girls get to cum, Sakura,” Kakashi croons in a lilting tone that turns her insides to liquid heat. “And you weren’t a very good girl now, were you? You lied, you were bratty and you lusted for someone else in my presence, that’s not how good girls behave.”

Her eyes grow wide as saucers at his proclamation. The implication that he is not going to grant her release at his hands today hitting her like a comet.

“No, no, no, no, Kakashi, _please_ ,” she pleads but he already lets her wrists go and steps back toward the front door. Faster out of her reach than she anticipates. On wobbly knees Sakura rushes after him, catching his bare forearm to pull him back just as he rests his hand on the door handle. “I’ll be good, I’ll be _so_ good! I promise! Just—“

“Just what?” His eyes are narrowed but she can see the honest curiosity in them. Curiosity in her words, her behaviour, in how far she’ll go?

“Touch me,” she pants and digs her nails into his arm, “ _please_ , touch me.”

When he pauses at her touch, Sakura triumphs inwardly. Only to be crestfallen at his appeasing smile and the mild shake of his head.

“I have another condition. To this,” he gestures vaguely between them, cocking a brow. “You have to tell Genma. My honesty policy extends to him.”

Blindsided by this change of topic, Sakura swallows harshly andlets go of him to cross her arms — immediately defensive again.

“When?”

He shrugs and grins impishly. She almost wants to punch him.

“That’s up to you. I’d recommend soon, because if you don’t? Then I’m not letting you orgasm with me,” he exposes his canines in a toothy smirk at Sakura’s aghast expression. “We can still meet and do this, but I’m not letting you cum. I’m giving you a month at most beyond that. Either you tell him, or I will. It’s up to you.”

Sakura doesn’t answer right away, her brain too full of primal needs and regurgitated panic to form words. Her tongue feels like lead anyway.

The door swings open silently and even if her legs feel like jello she wills them into movement, to escort him out the door. Her threshold is her entrance, standing rooted to her welcome mat as he grins smugly still. He hasn’t made someone this speechless in a while and even if his erection rages painfully against his jeans and he mourns some of the reasons for to do this, it’s kind of satisfying nevertheless. Especially with someone so _mouthy_.

For the third time that day Kakashi catches her chin and tilts it up toward his. When he speaks this time his voice is smooth and kind and mollifying, “Genma is my best friend since over fifteen years, I don’t want that ruined.”

It stings a little that he needs to point this out, but it really only clicks for Sakura then just _how_ grave this is. She nods in understanding and can even twist her reddened lips into a smile. If this was between her and Ino, she would likely not be able to deal with this as casually as Kakashi does.

“Call me,” she whispers against his lips when he pulls her in for a goodbye kiss that makes her skin prickle. The contrast to this morning is so harsh. She sighs against his lips, currently ignorant of the fact that she is long not done with the mental labor tied to this mess.

“With or without Genma?” Kakashi teases lightheartedly and her snort of laughter echoes from the stone walls. “See you soon, Sakura.”

“See you soon, Kakashi.”

* * *

When her doorbell rings a second time that day, Sakura is no less agitated than the first time. The vigour with which she rips her front door open makes the hinges squeak as she scowls deeply at the blonde leaning into her doorway with a handle of whiskey.

“Why the fuck are you smiling?” The host barks and her guest scowls right back at her.

“Jesus, forehead, who pissed in your coffee?” Not waiting for an answer Ino shoulders her way past her best friend, heading determinedly into the living room.

“No one!” Sakura groans dismissively, but slams the door shut with far more force than necessary anyway. At the questioning blue eyes meeting her in the living room, Sakura falters like a house of cards. “I have a problem because I’m whore.”

“Oh.”

“What do you mean ‘ _oh_ ’? What did you think why I traded spinning for whiskey?” Sakura sneers exasperatedly, before snatching the bottle from Ino’s carefully manicured hands, “on that topic, give me that.”

The blonde doesn’t object to the theft and instead peels herself out of her leather jacket as she watches Sakura head for the kitchen, scoffing then, “I just thought you finally came to your senses and realised you hate spinning. You know, like the rest of us.”

“Ino, it’s Monday! Who drinks on a Monday?” Sakura calls back over the sound of cabinet doors being opened and the bottle cap being twisted open.

“We do apparently,” the blonde mumbles under her breath before dropping into the couch cushions. Soon after, Sakura returns from the kitchen with two tumblers in hand and Ino accepts the empty glass handed to her with a scowl. “Also, didn’t you see your mother today?”

“No, I cancelled that.” Sakura doesn’t need to look at her best friend to know that her eyebrows are nearly at her hairline at the confession. She pointedly ignores it though and focuses on filling their glasses, drowning herself in a hearty sip from the bottle as a finishing touch.

“You cancelled on Mebuki?” The blonde sputters animatedly and nearly sloshes her drink over the carpet. Truly concerned with the situation now Ino leans forward in her seat, eyeing Sakura with a deeply worried expression.

She knew this was going to happen. Even after Kakashi had paid her that truly confusing visit this noon and all was well for half an hour — until her arousal fully wore off and she could form a clear (read: _freaked out_ ) thought on the matter — Sakura knew she would have to lay it all out for Ino to dissect. A sudden unwillingness to face the music and her best friend’s brutal honesty wells up in her and Sakura presses her lips into a thin line, grinding her jaw as she suddenly grows clammy. She knows Ino isn’t going to judge her, but acknowledging it out loud is forcing her to take action. Hasn’t she had enough of that for one day?

It’s inevitable though, Sakura knows this and Ino’s gentle fingertips at her knee are not helping. The sooner she gets on with it, the sooner it will be over. Gulping down a heavy swig of her whiskey she eventually breathes out, “Kakashi knows.”

“…Who?”

Sakura smacks her best friend’s shoulder as she hisses, “The cop!”

“Which one?”

Sakura smacks her again, “The first one! God listen to me just once, Yamanaka!”

“I do! Why is it my fault that it’s hard to keep up with your sexual awakening?" Sakura smacks her again and Ino raises her hands in defence at that point, her drink slipping over the edges of the glass as she barks, "Stop whacking me, woman!”

The doctor throws her a withering glare, but drops her hand into her lap placatingly.

Not quite appeased Ino moodily scoots one cushion further away from Sakura, as the latter decides to slam back the rest of her drink and moves to refill it. “Fine, fine, so he knows. About the other cop I’m assuming?”

“Genma,” Sakura supplies before gulping down yet another swig.

“Right.” Ino nods as she’s mentally going through the situation, but comes up stumped as there are still gaps of vital information she feels like she’s missing. Eventually the psychiatrist scowls before she sips on her drink. “So, he knows you’re hooking up with him and Genma?"

Sakura nods and groans melodramatically, “Yes, he was here today to bring me my watch and I confessed.”

“How did that go?” Ino laughs, sniffing gossip like a bloodhound twenty miles against the wind.

Oh, and what a _juicy_ piece of gossip it must be, judging by the miserable expression Sakura is sporting.

“Well, it—” the rosette starts but her voice breaks off with a high pitched croak. Silence stretches thickly between the two when Sakura doesn’t go on right away and instead chooses to gnaw awkwardly on her lip. Ino slips figuratively and quite literally to the edge of her seat as her cornflower blue eyes gleam with excitement.

Sakura hasn’t really been shameful about her sexuality before. During her marriage there wasn’t much to speak of and she certainly saw no point in being shameful about it since the divorce. Never with herself nor with Ino. Then why is she suddenly feeling so reluctant? Her breath catches in her throat with the recollection of that afternoon and she feels hot under her collar right away again just thinking about it. Ino sees this too in the flush burning on her cheeks now and the blonde nudges her knee impatiently.

“Forehead, _what happened_?”

It is enough to push her over the edge and Sakura bursts. In painstakingly close detail she recounts the ‘date’ from beginning to end, starting the night before and not sparing a single word or action. Ino is captured fully by the retelling but dares not to react beyond an occasional gasp and Sakura is glad for it. This way she gets to word vomit it all in one go and doesn’t have to repeat herself. By the time she is done and drops back into her seat, Ino grins from ear to ear like the cheshire cat.

“You dirty little slut,” the blonde proudly purrs and Sakura groans in anguish. As Ino recalls Sakura’s earlier words however, her blonde brows furrow in a frown, less and less sure that she is understanding this correctly the more Sakura sinks pitifully into herself. “Okay, so, you pick up these two super sexy cops — one of which also discovers a previously unknown kink in you — in a sleazy bar, and after you fuck their brains out you discover that they’re partners. Hot Cop number one figures out something is up and does _not_ dump your ass when he finds out that you’re fucking his best friend, nor does he snitch on you. He even gives you a grace period to fess up. Hot Cop number two is now at your mercy. Am I getting that right?”

Her best friend nods meekly.

“Why is this a problem again?”

Sakura’s expression turns around on a dime and within split seconds she stares at Ino in a hard tie between outraged offence and utter disbelief.

“Are you _kidding_ me right now? How is that _not_ a problem!” She exclaims near hysterically and slumps back into her seat. Hiding her face in her hands, she tacks on dramatically, “my mother was right, I _am_ a selfish, heartbreaking whore!”

Ino groans in rage at that and bangs her tumbler down on the coffee table before she smacks her best friend’s shoulder hard, “Christ Sakura, pull yourself together! Tsunade would have a heart attack if she heard that!”

“What do I do?” Sakura whines and Ino rolls her azure eyes pointedly.

“First, you drink.” Dutifully the blonde retrieves the bottle from beneath the coffee table and refills her host’s glass before gently guiding Sakura’s hand toward her mouth. “Secondly, you need to get your shit together. You act like you’re cheating on either of them. So far they’re two guys you met in a bar and continue to see for fantastic sex. It’s just unfortunate that they’re apparently close colleagues.”

Sakura howls, “Ino, they even live in the same house!”

“Details,” Ino waves dismissively through a sip of her drink as Sakura flops back into her seat. “Look, Kakashi gave you literally a get out of jail card—” at that the blonde snorts and chortles ungracefully into her drink, “get it, because he’s a cop and—” Sakura doesn’t laugh and instead throws her a withering death stare. “Okay, nevermind. _Look._ Kakashi literally gave you crystal clear instructions on what to do. If it bothers you that much, you have two options: stop seeing them or come clean ASAP.”

Sakura knows that Ino, and Kakashi for that matter, are both completely right. She also knows that should follow Ino’s advice, but still there is doubt and anxiety nibbling away at her. Nipping gingerly at her drink she can begin to feel the first one, she poured down her guzzle, sucker punch her softly already as she ponders her options. The buzz of the alcohol is welcome balm to her frayed nerves.

Eventually the doctor swallows and her eyes are soft with vulnerability, as is her voice, when she sighs, “What if Genma doesn’t want to see me anymore?”

_God, that detective duo already did one over on her_. Ino can’t help but feel a little touched, yet worried, at how her formerly so jaded friend has become so attached to the two so quickly.

Shrugging then, the blonde tries to smile softly as she delivers her advice, “That’s a gamble you already took, Forehead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, i really would love to give genma more screen time as many of you have voiced but with the way the next chapter is set up that's just not gonna happen. i gotta get plot moving along a little but fear not, there will be something for everyone! i could never neglect my favourite <3
> 
> thank you as always for reading and leave me all your thoughts <3


	11. a shot to the chest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> are you ready for this? are you? are you _sure_ you’re ready?
> 
> because I’m not lol, I am crippled by the fear to disappoint but that’s not y’all’s issue—so ANYWAY
> 
> everybody grab a snack, this one is gonna hit hard.

The rap of knuckles at the door of her office might as well be a battering ram with how forcefully the sound rips Sakura out of the stiff beginnings of a nap in her desk chair. She was just about to doze off and the doctor shoots up in an instant with her neck and back cracking pitifully. Unable to stop a low moan of pain from escaping her throat, she presses her hand in a firm massage against the new kink in her stiff neck before she calls a croaky, “ _come in_ ” to whoever forced her so unceremoniously out of her slumber. The door clicks open without a pause and Shizune’s dark-haired head pops through the crack, a sympathetically apologetic smile on her face as she grimaces, “Fell asleep again, huh?”

The rosette behind her desk gives a sad little nod while she stretches her arms and attempts to relax her bunched muscles, but her whole body just protests painfully against any strain. Her colleague huffs, now leaned comfortably into the door frame with a file in hand and shakes her head. “What did you even buy that obnoxiously large couch for, if you’re not going to use it?”

“Obviously to spite Sasuke, because it was equally obnoxiously expensive and I bought it while we were still married,” Sakura fires back with a crooked smile and Shizune has to hide her laugh behind the Manila folder in her hand. She never really liked the younger woman’s ex-husband, but was too polite to say anything about it at the time.

Silently examining the pain in her back, Sakura contemplates her next course of action as she frowns at her heels discarded beneath the desk. After a couple moments of resigned silence she sighs eventually and bats her lashes still a little sleepily at Shizune. “Anyway,” she yawns and waves her hand in an inviting gesture, “What’s up? What did you need?”

While the pink-haired doctor slips her aching feet into her shoes—the pretty kind, not the practical, since she isn’t technically meant to be out on the floor or in surgery today—and lifts herself from behind her desk, Shizune holds out the file to her already as she nods toward the hall.

“There’s two officers to see you in room 6264,” she informs her in a soft tone, but Sakura scowls nevertheless. It’s not unusual that she has to deal with police in her job, but considering her personal affairs with them at the moment she can’t help but be a little nervous. Sweat beads up unbidden at the small of her back one way or another. Maybe she wouldn’t feel all that nervous if she had just finally told Genma, since Kakashi set his ultimatum a couple of weeks ago already. _But no, you’ve been dragging your feet like an idiot. Get on that, Haruno. Today!_

Not that she needs another checkpoint on her never ending to-do-list, but she knows that this is one task long overdue. At last Sakura swallows and ignores the way her neck prickles uncomfortably while she flips open the file, her tone bordering almost on gruff before she clears her throat, “What do they want?”

“It’s about that girl that was caught in a robbery last month, remember? She’s still in a coma, but apparently they’re interested nevertheless,” Shizune shrugs and waves her hand in a nondescript gesture. “I don’t get their point either, but since you’re the treating physician they still want to talk to you.”

Sakura supposes that makes sense and hums in agreement as she pushes out into the hall at Shizune’s side. It shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes at most out of her day, depending on how adamant they are in their questioning, but still she cannot seem to shake a glumly foreboding feeling upsetting her stomach. It makes her heartbeat race uncomfortably and her hands grow clammy. For a second she wonders if she’s being plain paranoid until she reasons that maybe she’s just coming down with something. Either way, Shizune is already halfway down the hall when Sakura snaps out of her swirling thoughts, connected more or less to her private life rather than the patient file in her hand, and she almost crashes into a shuffling by nurse when she whips around on her heel to call after her colleague, “Hey, Shizune?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you fetch Ino too, please?” she smiles, but the other woman scowls.

“Sure, but I thought the patient is still comatose?”

Sakura shrugs, her eyes flitting over the stats on the front page of the file for a second before she gestures vaguely, “She is, but you know how cops can be. Ino is just better at getting them off my back, and I don’t want them to come crying to me once the patient wakes up and they can’t question her like anyone else, due to trauma. I mean, it’s not everyday that your boyfriend shoots you square in the chest.” Not _literally_ at least.

Shizune seems to have a similar thought as she bites back a smile and nods, “I think more women can sympathize with that than you think.” After a brief pause she grimaces a little, “but who am I telling, huh?”

There’s silence at first and Shizune already seems to thoroughly regret what she said, when Sakura wipes away her doubt easily and laughs. Loud and hearty, straight from her belly.

Even as Sakura gets into the elevator her shoulders still shake with the aftershocks of her chuckle and she has to wipe tears from her watering eyes when the doors close in front of her. At least she can laugh about it at this point.

* * *

On her ride down Sakura leafs absently through the surprisingly thin file in her hands and re-familiarizes herself with the case and the operation she performed nearly more than a month ago. She remembers this day clearly actually—she had spent the better part of her morning with her hand wrist deep in the girl’s ribcage and then spent the better part of her afternoon chasing after her heirloom watch halfway across town. Funny how far away that day already seems to her now, even if mere weeks lie between then and today. Time flies fast though when you’re juggling two men, your friends and your high workload job while trying to maintain even a shred of sanity.

Not that she’s doing the best job at the latter. Frankly, Sakura’s head is almost spinning off her shoulders lately between Kakashi and Genma alone; even now just the thought of the two causes her eyes to flutter closed naturally, as she sinks into memory and leans her head against the back wall of the elevator. The wall shakes faintly against her back, whirring floor for floor down to the ICU above the emergency room.

These two weeks since Kakashi discovered her little secret—if one can call it that—have been _interesting_ to say the least, not to mention turbulent. Yet nothing short of exciting. Sometimes when she is at work she thinks of them, if they are currently together. If it’s a boring workday or if they’re letting their thoughts drift to her too, the same way she does. Other times she wonders whether Kakashi reads her texts with Genma in the car or if he waits until he has a private moment.

Every time they have seen each other in the past fortnight, Sakura has pushed and prodded Kakashi; learning about new limits—or lack thereof—in herself and him, and the doctor discovered a new sense of _brattiness_ in herself. He coaxed it out of her with ease every single time she knelt in front of him with glassy eyes, or whimpered against his neck when he brought her to the edge, only to leave her dangling. And every single time she saw this dangerous flicker in his eyes, the one that made her feverish and dizzy and led her to believe that _this time_ , just _this_ _time_ , he would relent. That he’d be generous and let her cum even though she _hasn’t_ told Genma yet.

But Kakashi is a man of his word, she found—much to her dismay.

Not unlike drugs, the high he gives her has a comedown too though. And the crash from the euphoria she experiences with Kakashi is _brutal_. When he leaves her place with hard kisses and bruises on her thighs, only to send her off to warm hickory eyes and knee weakening grins all the way across town, she feels utterly _rotten_. Every single night out of the six that she has spent at Genma’s place in the past two weeks, peppered between her ‘dates’ with Kakashi, she told herself _tonight’s_ _the_ _night_. But then when she gathered her courage and opened her mouth, Genma kissed the words straight from her lips. With his tongue and teeth, he struck the flintstone in her belly until flame sparked within her like a wildfire devouring the bush. It eliminated every ounce of coherence, of guilt or urgency that could have driven her to confess every single time. All charred to nothingness within seconds at his mere touch.

Last night hit its peak though, when she almost fell down the stairs as she left, blind with guilt and nausea from her heartbeat skyrocketing over hearing a neighbor’s steps in the staircase on her descent. She swore herself in the cab home that that can’t keep happening or someone is bound to get hurt; one way or another. And she’d rather not break a bone—or a heart—over casual sex.

When the elevator rattles to a stop at her desired floor and the doors open with a gentle _ping!_ Sakura dutifully slides _‘telling Genma’_ to the very top of her mental list of priorities and highlights it in fire-engine red. She vows to text him _the second_ she is done with the police.

On practical autopilot Sakura sidesteps nurses and equipment carts alike, while her eyes stay glued to the pages in her hand as she makes her way around the next corner in the labyrinth of the clinic. Knowing the veins of the hospital with every little room, nook and cranny almost better than her own home, she can afford to concentrate her attention a last time on the file rather than the path in her way. After all, there’s _nothing_ Sakura hates more than feeling unprepared.

The room numbers slip past her along to the beat of her fast paced steps and the symphony of beeps and whirrs from the various monitors coming through open doors to her left and right— _6256, 6258, 6260_ . When Sakura finally raises her eyes from the file, she feels practically struck by lightning and skids unceremoniously to a stop with her heels digging into the linoleum floor. Every muscle in her body tenses up to the point of agony at the sight before her, every cell getting flooded with the sour lactic acid making her sore as her blood runs ice cold in her veins. That foreboding feeling of dread was _not_ unfounded.

* * *

In front of the very room she intended to approach, room 6264 at the end of the hall, stand two officers in casual attire. Broad shoulders clad in army green and richly dark brown leather. She doesn’t need to see their faces to recognise them instantly; she would know those two heads of hair anywhere—even in her sleep at this point. _If not by look, but by feel alone._

The file slips from her now limp hands onto the floor with a fluttering crash and suddenly everything around her seems to happen in slow motion. As if this was a bad movie, the sheets scatter at her feet and the noise it produces causes the two men at the end of the hall to turn around to the source. A disgustingly synchronised picture they make as they twist around, turned in toward each other and both sporting the same exact expression of surprise. It is a glaring testament to their closeness and it makes the bile in Sakura’s throat rise up to the base of her tongue; the acrid taste burning so badly her eyes water.

Even if she hadn’t dropped her file, she would have drawn their attention with ease within moments. It’s not the first time Sakura sticks out like a sore thumb, but as she stands there so forlorn among the drab hospital greys and beiges, she looks so out of place like a paradise bird in captivity. Wrapped in her carmine dress, white lab coat and adorned with her carnation pink locks, it now only serves to highlight the blood draining from her face at an alarming rate. If she faints, she’s at least in the right place for it.

Her rushing blood thunders in her ear like a river as her heartbeat skyrockets, carried by nothing but blind panic and anxiety and Sakura is suddenly deaf to the usual noise surrounding her. It seems to quiet down with every beat of her heart, level by level, until it is so low that all there is, is static and her erratic heartbeat. She thinks she may as well be six feet under, and would even prefer that right now, when a sound cuts through the thickness of her skull like a hot knife through butter. It’s Genma’s laugh of surprise. Sakura feels sick with the way it trips her heart and makes her breath stutter in her chest.

As all the previously quieted sounds rush back to their regular volume, crashing down on her as suddenly as the surf, and she takes a gasping breath to shake herself out of her stupor. Blinking down at her hands, her body moves on its own volition and without conscious thought she crouches down to the scattered file as she hears Genma’s steps already boom on the floor in his light jog over. It is so goddamn crystal clear, that he is misreading the situation. But frankly, she can’t say if perhaps she doesn’t prefer his blissful ignorance over Kakashi’s mirthless smirk. Sakura hardly chances a glance up at him, but even the fraction of a second is enough to read the sentiment behind Kakashi’s grin clear as day and it sends a sickening shiver down her spine.

_Oh, you are in so much trouble, baby girl._

“Well, hello you,” Genma’s large, beautiful hands come into her field of vision first as he tries to help her gather her mess and she has to force her own to stop from trembling when she lifts her wide eyes to his face. _Fuck, how is anyone this handsome in fluorescent lighting?_ Sakura can’t say if she is dazzled more by the situation or the twinkle in his eyes as he shifts that godforsaken toothpick between his lips from one corner of his boyish grin to the other. Either way, she is nauseous. “Didn’t expect to see me here, huh?”

_No, she sure fucking_ **_didn’t._**

No words make it past the threshold of her teeth, even though her head seemed full of them just moments ago, and Sakura can’t find her voice. It’s gone, simply gone—her mind too. Suddenly blank as every word she’s ever known is lost in the warm void that is Genma’s chocolate eyes and the gentle pull they exert on her. Thus Sakura only stares blankly with her lips parted in a slight grimace of surprise. Or shock. Or both. Every single response coming to mind, lodges sideways in her throat on its way out and while she tries to uselessly work her leaden tongue, she clutches her mess of papers with white knuckles.

“You alright?” Genma asks low beneath his breath when she gapes like a fish, and his brow twitches minutely in worry as he watches the blood return to her still gobsmacked face in what he deems to be a furiously charming blush.

“Uh—hi,” the doctor manages to choke out dumbly eventually and her throat feels too raw even for that single syllable. Swallowing hard, her eyes flit restlessly and still panicked from Genma’s face up to Kakashi’s as he slowly saunters over to them, hands in his pockets and an expression on his face that is so smug and calm it makes her want to vomit. Slowly trying to reel in her thrumming heart, Sakura straightens into an upright position again and accepts the last sheets handed to her by her lover. She blinks back at Genma’s face a little owlishly and wrangles her stiff features into the closest thing to a smile that she can muster right now, before she near hisses under her breath, “What are you doing here?”

Genma has no chance to answer past a surprised quirk of his brow, when Kakashi sidles up next to him and gives her a courteous smile. Kakashi doesn’t bother with any sort of preamble and Sakura’s breath catches in her throat again as their eyes lock. His smooth, dark chuckle makes her belly flip wildly; the same way as it does _every single_ time, and Sakura can only silently curse her body. There is genuinely _no_ worse timing than now for this kind of response. He grins crookedly, and she just wants to perish, “Do you two know each other?”

_Still haven’t told him yet, huh?_

As horrible as this situation is for her, at least Kakashi holds up his end of the bargain and honors the rules. _Her_ rules—rules that she did not put upon Genma as explicitly as she did with Kakashi and she realizes her mistake instantly. Her double standard glares at her with brutal honesty as she sees the rueful, cheeky grin sprouting on Genma’s pretty face while he shrugs nonchalantly. He has no reason to pretend that they don’t know each other and hums impishly, “You could say that, I guess.”

The glint striking in Kakashi’s charcoal eyes at the admission makes her chest feel tight and Sakura casts her eyes back to the file in her hand, definitely not about to say _jackshit_ on the matter. Instead she presses her lips shut into a tight smile. Immediately it invites silence to settle thickly between the trio and Kakashi holds his gaze on Sakura evenly while she pointedly avoids his. In the wake of his fairly alluding statement, it doesn’t take longer than a heartbeat for Genma to start to catch on. “Why, do _you two_ know each other?”

Sakura wishes for the ground to swallow her up right then and there, and she takes a shallow little breath before she lifts her sage green gaze tentatively first to Genma and then to Kakashi. The second her eyes meet Kakashi’s again, Sakura loses her ability to speak once more as her throat clamps shut. Aloof as ever, the silver haired officer is the perfect picture of dignified resignation when he slides his hands into his pockets and levels the doctor before him with a measured look.

She burns under his gaze like cinder and her heart stutters when he declares composedly, “I think we should talk after this.”  
  


Out of the corner of her eye she can see Genma’s face twist into an expression of confusion, his brain refusing to accept or sort the influx of information that swings for his chest like a sledgehammer. If he believes in one core principle it is _innocent until proven guilty_. Not that it helps him out in any way right now, but there is no time for him to protest anyway as their attention is drawn to a voice calling out behind her instead.

* * *

  
“Well, someone is in for a spanking, I see.”

“ _Ino—_ ” Sakura almost drops her file again when she nearly chokes on her own breath as she whirls to the smug blonde strutting down the hall, sporting a Cheshire Cat-like grin.

Ino smiles sweetly at the obviously tense trio as she comes closer and it is clear to Sakura that she knows exactly what’s going on—not that it’s hard with the information Ino is privy to. It really didn’t take a genius to pick apart the situation in front of her knowing about Sakura’s private life, and Ino simply cannot help herself when it comes to stirring the point. Her glossy pink lips stretch into a faux-innocent smile as she gestures to the file in hand, “Doctor Haruno, you requested my presence?”

Huffing a heavy breath through her nose, Sakura bears close resemblance to a bull seeing a red flag as she shoots her best friend a withering glare. Ino is less than impressed and Sakura squares her shoulders, declaring in a polite yet clipped tone through clenched teeth, “Yes, I did. But you see, I changed my mind. The patient is still comatose and we will therefore—” at that Sakura steps forward and grows so bold as to plant her hand on the blonde’s upper arm with an iron grip in an effort to shove her back down the hall, “— _not_ be needing your assistance today. Thank you very much for coming down here and excuse me for wasting your time, since I’m _sure_ you have more pressing matters to tend to.”

The message Sakura’s eyes send through fire and spark is clear: _Get the fuck out, bitch. Now._

But Ino is wilfully blind and deaf to any cues and instead peers over her shoulder at Genma and Kakashi, both standing silent with varying levels of tautness pulling at their jaws. Smiling dumbly, Ino exaggerates an expression of concern when she turns back to her friend, “Oh, Sakura, are you sure? You really do seem to have your hands full here, I wouldn’t min—”

“Yes, I’m fucking sure,” Sakura hisses as she digs her manicure into the blonde’s slim biceps, attempting to push her down the hall one more time, but Ino stands rooted to the spot like a tree and only waves her hands in a placating manner, motioning to give up. She really shouldn’t harass her best friend like that.

“Alright, alright, if you insist,” she relents and Sakura manages to draw her first full breath when the blonde actually sidesteps her and seems to finally move away. Yet the relief is short lived as Ino doesn’t get further down the hall than a couple steps before she halts and turns back to Sakura, already halfway twisted back to the detectives. “Oh, but, Forehead?”

No, Ino really _shouldn’t_ harass Sakura like this. _But what’s life without a little ribbing from your best friend?_

Sakura’s heart stops dead in her chest at the usage of the unbeloved nickname.

“Yes?” she sighs warily and wonders briefly what on earth she did in a previous life to deserve this.

“When you go in there,” Ino nods to the room, and Sakura holds her breath when her formerly sly grin grows downright predatory. “Keep your panties on.”

The blonde has the gall to wink before she turns around again to stalk back to her office, but Sakura is _done._ Kakashi’s snort behind her is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back, and she calls out callously after her, “Ino-pig?”

This time when Ino halts, it is Sakura’s turn to smile sugary sweetly from ear to ear.

“Yes?”

“I swear on my daddy’s grave, _I will key your fucking car._ ”

Ino’s cherry red thunderbird, currently parked polished to the nines in absolute _mint_ condition in the hospital’s parking lot, flashes in both women’s minds and Ino’s eyes narrow immediately into barely more than slits. Their azure hue burns with frosty warning as she glares at the rosette, and her voice is strained with threat when she hisses lowly, “You wouldn’t.”

Sucking in her cheeks to keep from grinning in triumph, Sakura calmly retrieves the stacked keychain worthy of a janitor from her lab coat’s pocket and shakes it like a rattle. “Try me.”

Both doctors hold the other’s stare easily for what seems like the longest minute known to mankind, until at last Ino huffs in resignation and turns to Kakashi and Genma, standing like two pillars of salt on the sidelines; all confusion from their own previous tense altercation near forgotten at the spectacle that just took place. _Maybe she did Sakura a favor here after all._ Gathering a deep breath, the blonde musters up the prettiest yet fakest smile in her repertoire and nods her head respectfully, “Detectives.” Turning to Sakura, her features fall instantly and she grinds her jaw as she snarls in goodbye, “Doctor Slut.”

Sakura snorts.

* * *

As fast as she came, Ino is gone again and now Sakura’s blood clots with adrenaline.

Ino _definitely_ did her a service in one way or another, because when she turns around to her two lovers, all the insecurity and panic that choked her up previously is gone and the adrenaline and vitriol Ino inspired sets her nerves on _fire_.

Albeit still caught in faintly hostile skepticism, Genma chances a glance at Kakashi at his side, who meets him with the same tentatively concerned expression marring his features, before his warm eyes flicker back to Sakura. In juxtaposition to their clear anxiety, she is unafraid and fiercely ignores their concerns painted clear in their eyes to take a deep breath. Her mind is working at lightning speed and she slips into a state of rational focus without room for private distress—she affectionately calls this her _Tsunade Mode. Her mentor taught her best after all._ It finds most use during surgery, but also anytime she cannot afford to have an emotional freakout. Like during her divorce. Or right now.

Setting her jaw with a neutral, business-like smile she turns to the two quiet mice aka her gobsmacked police officers, standing uselessly in the middle of the hall. With the sides of the hall cramped with rushing nurses, Sakura realises that today apparently _the only way out is through_ , and she shoves herself unceremoniously through the narrow space between their shoulders. She’s a _doctor_ here, first and foremost, she doesn’t have _time_ for petty drama or a lover’s quarrel.

To her surprise, neither man stops her or even flinches at the heavy body contact, instead they give way to her like the red sea to Moses. Sakura is secretly glad for it, she doubts that she could muster up the energy again if they interfered with it now.

Even inside the patient’s room, neither dares to open up the topic they neglected upon Ino’s interruption. Although now that she looks at both handsome faces as they stand on the other side of the patient bed from her, while she recites brief stats relating to the surgery, she has reason to believe that it is for vastly different reasons. Where Kakashi seems unnervingly calm, almost enjoying watching her move around her natural habitat, Genma’s distress is painfully visible. His jaw is taut and Sakura anticipates the toothpick whipping restlessly in the corner of his mouth to snap any second as she finishes her report with a sigh.

“I’m very sorry, but as you can see, the patient is not exactly in a state to be giving information,” she gestures vaguely to the poor girl, hooked up to a myriad of machines as she lies before her on the bed. With now firm hands Sakura brushes through the wrinkled pages in the mostly sorted file and briefly reads over a section of notes again, before she hums in a deadpan tone additionally, “Considering the circumstances under which she obtained her injuries, I’m doubtful that she’ll be ready for questioning the minute she wakes up either. It’s quite distressing to have your lover break your heart with a literal bullet, I’d assume.”

When they don’t respond to her attempt at a joke and she looks up from the file into their mismatched faces, she realises how Shizune must have felt earlier. The difference is that neither man relieves her creeping anxiety, as Kakashi only snorts mirthlessly and Genma’s scowl deepens even further. Averting her eyes, an embarrassed flush spreads up her cheeks like a rash and Sakura clears her throat awkwardly. “The most I can tell you for the moment is that she had a frequent visitor, even though he never came inside the room.”

At the mention of _anyone_ related to the Jane Doe both detectives listen up visibly, and the mood between them tips in instant. They both grow serious and slip behind their own masks of professionalism— _god_ , this really shouldn’t make her breath hitch in her throat the way it does.

“Would you be willing to give a statement on the visitor if necessary?” Genma presses matter of factly and Sakura dies about a million deaths on the inside but shrugs.

“Certainly,” she nods cooperatively, and adds without further thought, “You know where to reach me.”

_Here. In my office. At the hospital. I meant at the goddamn fucking hospital!_

Sakura curses inwardly as she defies the urge to slide her eyes shut and lets her skittish gaze meet Genma’s head on. There’s a moment of loaded silence pressing on her sternum, before Kakashi’s laugh rings in the air, but it is little relief. It stings her ears like a fire alarm.

Her heart slides straight into her throat at Genma’s hard glare and the strained, low growl that accompanies it, “Okay. What _the fuck_ is going on?”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooooo how are we feeling? did I do it justice? are you disappointed? anxious? angry? tell me please because I’m struggling lol
> 
> for the next chapter I can only say:
> 
> ..................are you ready for The Talk™?
> 
> as you probably guessed this is only part one to this scene, but I wanted to split it up into two to be less overwhelming for me, you... genma lmao
> 
> I’m already working away on it and I think at the most I’ll have it ready in a week, maybe two! In the meantime, keep an eye on my other works 👀 mainly my new fic featuring our beloved usual suspects (sakura, genma and kakashi) but also _Shisui_ (a _dom_ shisui at that) because I have 0 self control and already 3 more chapters ready for that hehe
> 
> anyway, thank you for all of your continuous support and always giving me feedback! I’d appreciate it _especially_ on this one, given the plot point but you know, I’m happy about every read regardless! <3


	12. caught red-handed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the alternative title for this was The Talk™ btw, but you know... gotta stick with the aesthetic here
> 
> i originally intended to only post this chapter tomorrow or on tuesday but honestly i couldn't leave you guys hanging so long
> 
> we have finally reached THE FINAL COUNT DOWN DUN DUN DUN *off key kazoo*
> 
> whew this was a mess to write ~~and i know exactly why i put it off for so long~~ but here it is, i couldn't bare to torture you guys any longer! i hope it was worth the wait and thank you always for all the awesome support and feedback!
> 
> special thanks to my lovely beta jennity <3

Her ears ring with the sound of his voice and Sakura feels stiff with anxiety, as it floods her veins like poison.

Where he kept silent and contained himself before, Genma can hardly find his voice now as he presses through gritted teeth, “Would somebody fucking talk to me for fuck’s sake?”

The stiff silence he is met with acts like gasoline on the fire of his suspicion, now tearing through his system unbridled and bubbling so hotly under his skin that it hurts.

“Not here,” Sakura chokes out in a high pitched plea after an agonisingly long minute and rounds the patient bed in an obvious flight for the door. “My office.”

She barely makes it a couple steps past him though, when Genma’s hand shoots forward faster than the speed of light and catches her wrist to hold her back. “Oh, not so fast,” he growls lowly and Sakura’s breath shallows instantly. Her stomach flips violently and she doesn’t dare to even think that it was anything beyond anxiety responding to his tone, when he presses on, “The hell, Sakura? Do you guys know each other?”

The rosette’s breath catches in her throat at the usage of her name and her eyes flicker helplessly to Kakashi in a silent plea. Just like before though, he is deliberately of _zero_ help.

_Guess you’re on your own, Haruno._ _It’s now or never, huh?_

Taking a moment to gather her courage, she simply stares at Genma for two, three, four heartbeats, before her breath burns in her lungs and she bursts like glass under pressure. Blunt and unceremoniously. “Yes, we know each other. I’m kind of fucking both of you.”

Out of the corner of her eye she can spot Kakashi’s charcoal eyes widen in surprise over just how _callously_ she delivered the ugly truth. She can’t fault him for his surprise, because her own ears are ringing agonisingly with the sound of her voice. Her tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip, suddenly dry and chapped and Sakura steels her gaze as she meets Genma’s. She feels instantly sick and her chest practically caves in at the way she can watch something shatter behind his warm bronze irises.

Her voice softens considerably into a rough round sound when she adds hastily, “We should talk about that.” Yet Genma won’t release her wrist and instead only keeps staring in silent shock. Sakura’s eyes prick with tears while she gently pries him off. “But _not here_. In my office.”

Ready to practically break into a sprint outside of the patient room _—as though she could physically run from her problems—_ Sakura picks up a fast pace and weaves deftly through the obstacle course of staff and patients, straight toward the stairwell. She doesn’t trust the elevator right now. The confined space might very well suffocate her between the two on the ride up to her office’s floor. The click of her heels echoes loud and sharp on the concrete as she takes two steps at a time, practically falling up the stairs in her haste, knowing that her lovers are hot on her heels. Deaf to anything but the crescendo of thoughts and defences in her head, she ignores all their—Kakashi’s mostly—to slow down and her hair whips wildly as she stumbles out of the stairwell with a poorly concealed gasp. Her chest feels too tight with anxiety and she has trouble breathing, causing her hands to shake when she eventually forces the door to her office open.

As soon as it falls shut behind Kakashi, Genma practically explodes at his partner, “Did you know about this?”

Grateful to be relieved of the unwelcome attention at least for a moment, Sakura doesn’t insert herself and dives instead behind the safety of her desk, crouching down to pull open the very bottom drawer as she secretly wonders if an anxiety attack _can’t_ actually kill you. With how brutally her heart is beating she isn’t quite so sure anymore.

Meeting Genma’s glare with a sigh, Kakashi shoves his hands into his pockets and grimaces, “I did.” He knows he is not as innocent in this as he would like to be, but the sheer _pain_ and betrayal falling over his best friend’s features hits him like a hot bullet. Swallowing down the tight feeling in his throat, he averts his gaze quickly and his eyes catch on Sakura just rising with her hands full from behind her desk. _How can someone so seemingly angelic cause so much havoc?_

“I did know, but Sakura and I had a deal. I was going to tell you soon if she didn’t,” he elaborates, but now fails to see how he thought this was a reasonable course of action when he struck the deal with her. This is strangely out of character for him, he realises and turns to look at Sakura again. _What did that woman do to him? God._ Grinding his jaw he’s suddenly overcome with annoyance and huffs at her indignantly, “I can’t believe you still haven’t told him!”

Immediately Sakura’s mood _flips._ At lightning speed she swings like a wrecking ball from blind anxiety to outraged defence and slams the whiskey bottle in her hands down on the table as she cries back exasperatedly, “I still had over two weeks!”

“Oh, come on,” Kakashi snarls and Sakura bangs the three glasses from her other hand down on the tabletop too. “Why would you even—”

But he does not get to finish his sentence as a hard palm connects with his shoulder in a quick but less than gentle smack. “What _the fuck_?” Genma barks, his eyes training hotly on Kakashi, “how could _you_ keep this secret from me _at all_? How long has this been going on already?”

Unsure how to answer, or whether to answer at all, both accused parties are silent for a beat until Kakashi _and_ Sakura both start at the same time.

“ _It’s—_ ”

“ _We’ve—_ ”

It takes _a lot_ for the seasoned officer to blow a gasket, but when the both of them effectively cut each other off as they try to talk over another, Genma _snaps._

“ _Enough!_ Would you just fucking fill me in on what the hell is going on here? _One_ of you!”

They both fall into clipped silence again, and this time Kakashi chooses to bite his tongue in favour of levelling her simply with a pointed look. It conveys what he wants to say just fine. _You wanted to wait till now, this is on you._

Right in that moment Sakura understands how you could point a gun at your lover. When she sighs deeply, she feels suddenly very exhausted and rubs a hand over her brow. “One moment. I need a drink.”

Like the perfect, overzealous student that she is, Sakura took _every_ single lesson taught to her by her mentor, Senju Tsunade, to heart—even the one about keeping a fifth of something in your desk at all times. And lord knows she’s glad about honouring that one right now. Opening the fresh bottle of whiskey without hesitation, Sakura begins to pour a good two if not three fingers into each of the three glasses before here.

“Sakura, it’s 11 am,” Kakashi scolds boldly as he gives her a stern look across the desk that doesn’t affect her in the least.

Instead she corks the bottle and deadpans dryly, “I’m aware.”

Even Genma though, still flush with his unfamiliar impatience and anger, frowns and adds chidingly, “We’re all on duty, Sakura. And I’m driving.” 

_Goody two-shoes._

Again, she is not impressed and Sakura meets his gaze plainly for a solid breath, before she shrugs, “Fine.” And pours the contents of the left glass into the middle one.

Without hesitation she claims the overfull middle glass and rounds her desk while raising it to her lips to take a sip—or rather a large gulp, a whole mouthful really. Her face scrunches in a soft little grimace as her eyes water with the sting of the alcohol while both men watch her utterly astonished and speechless.The whiskey rolls down her throat and Sakura finally feels like she can take a deep breath as she leans to her desk, and settles the heel of her palm on the edge of the mahogany. Eyes cast down into her glass for a moment, she muses briefly that she should start keeping ice cubes in here too, before she lifts her head and catches Genma’s eye dead on. 

“The week that I met you in that bar, I also met Kakashi there. Just a couple days before,” she starts and is pleasantly surprised at herself at how firm her voice sounds now. Yet Genma only meets her with a hard stare, silently prompting her to go on when the sound rings out. “ You know, I didn’t even plan to see him again,” she continues, one corner of her mouth quirking involuntarily upward into a flash of a grin; only barely resisting the urge to laugh at the utter absurdity of fate. Out of the corner of her eye she spies Kakashi’s face twisting into a mildly offended grimace but she chooses to ignore it. “And, I guess you already know this, but I forgot my watch and, well, you had already texted me, so... things just kind of escalated from there.”

“ _‘Things just kind of escalated from there’_?” Kakashi parrots sharply with a bite to his voice that nearly makes her flinch. “Sakura, are you kidding me? I asked you point blank if you were seeing my partner and you said no!”

“I said that I don’t know and I _didn’t_! Not for sure at least. Not _then_!” she defends hotly and her cheeks flush bright. Across from her Genma’s throat constricts tightly, the information barely reaching him over the broken beat of his heart pounding in his ears.

At his right, Kakashi scoffs roughly, ready to tear into her about what a _bullshit_ excuse that is and _how she_ knows _that_ , but he doesn’t get the chance. Before any sounds can make it past his lips, Sakura cuts him off again and gesticulates agitatedly, nearly sloshing her drink in his direction, like a flammable underline to her hiss. “Why is it even such a big deal to you? We figured that out the next day anyway!”

“Oh, I'm fucking glad _you_ guys figured it out the next day!" Genma snarls with a hollow laugh that strikes the two squabblers silent in an instant. At once the room feels suddenly cold, and his bitterness turns the usually rich sound of his voice grim and ugly, "Well, fuck me then, I guess. Did anybody even _think_ to tell me?”

Fresh silence presses thickly down on them again and Sakura just stares speechlessly at Genma for a long moment. He is completely right and there is absolutely nothing for her to say, that would make any of this okay. Because it’s not. It’s really fucking _not_.

Kakashi is far less impressed by his partner’s obvious distress however, mind cloudy with his own anger—both at her as much as himself—and crosses his arms over his chest. “Not to say I told you so, but _I fucking told you so_ , Sakura.”

The doctor groans immediately, her irritation reignited like a bomb as she swings her drink once more in his direction as though it was a dagger. “Oh shut the fuck up, Kakashi. You could’ve—”

They just can’t let off each other, Genma realises as they practically jump at the other’s throats immediately again and a thought strikes the detective as suddenly as lightning.

“Are you two _dating_?” He interrupts once more, lowering his voice to a level that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up straight.

Sakura falls into silence immediately again while Kakashi shakes his head, snorting dejectedly while he picks up the other glass of whiskey at last, “No, we’re not dating. Are you two dating?”

“No!” Sakura supplies fast, perhaps _too_ fast, and grimaces at Genma’s jaw tightening visibly. “It’s just sex.” Nervously her eyes flit to him and she meets his narrowed eyes tentatively. “I thought that was clear?”

“Well, was it?” Kakashi prods agitatedly and has to force himself to take a sip of the whiskey to wash down the bile in his throat. He finds himself a little overwhelmed with anger and jealousy frankly and isn’t used to the out of control feeling. Keeping his eyes wilfully shut to the fact that he had as much part in this as her, he continues to taunt bitterly. “Did you draw up a whole catalogue of rules with him too or—”

For the last time Genma breaks up their lover’s quarrel when he slams his hand down on her desk, right beside her own, and silences them in an instant. “Alright, _shut the fuck up_. Both of you.”

This time not even Kakashi dares defy him and Genma, still leaning heavily on the hand he just slammed down, glances from Sakura to Kakashi with his eyes hard. There’s mere inches between him and her and his heavy breath, so laboured in its desperate pursuit for composure, makes her shiver. “When the hell did you plan on telling me? Do I not have a say in whether or not I want to see the same woman as my best friend of twenty years? Do I not—” _matter?_

But he cuts himself off before he puts that thought out into the open and licks his lips with a shake off his head. His chest aches and it’s too early in the week for his private life to go up in flames. Gathering a deep breath, Genma looks back and forth between the two a last time, searching for any inkling of remorse or guilt, and pushes off the desk. Sakura feels suddenly cold from the lack of his warm body besides hers, even if it was burning with fury and she practically sinks into herself with regret. His voice is rough with hurt when he concludes on his way to the door, “You know what, you guys already fight like an old couple anyway. I don’t want to get in between that. Fuck you two.”

When it registers in her sluggish brain that he is about to _leave_ , Sakura _panics._ She slams down her glass hastily as she flies to rush after him, but he has already slipped out of her office and into the hall. Kakashi now stands rooted to the spot akin to the cenotaph, not daring or even _wanting_ to follow them in that moment. His stomach is flipping with remorse and acrid guilt; the shame over his own fault on the matter devouring him like an old friend.

Up here on the floor reserved for mostly offices, the hall is deserted and blissfully empty when Sakura eventually catches up to Genma and digs her fingers into the back of his jacket without further thought. All she can think of is that she needs to _stop_ him. He can’t leave, not like this—even though she knows her wish is selfish.

At the contact of her fingers with his back he freezes immediately and close to wilts at the sound of her voice, coloured with despair and sorrow, “Genma, no, _please_ —please don’t just leave like this, I’m sorry, I’m so, so, _so_ sorry! I never meant for it to go this way at all, I—” Her voice breaks as she starts to stutter and he has to take a moment to breathe before he wills himself to turn around. When he does she finds herself out of breath all of a sudden, her sternum pressing into her lungs so firmly there is little room for air besides her pain. All her fervent efforts of squashing all the too soft, too gentle, too affectionate feelings for him in the past few weeks fail pathetically when they bubble to the back of her throat like a geyser.

“You know, I don’t really care if you meant for it to go this way, but fact is, _it did_ ,” he explains calmly, nearly coldly, and shakes her hands loose from his jacket before he crosses his arms over his chest. “Right now I honestly don’t want to look at either of you two.”

Like a house of cards Sakura falters under his guarded gaze and her shoulders droop several inches before she croaks under her breath, “I get that. God, I really do.” She means it too; struck now with the ache of a memory of when she first found out who Sasuke cheated with. Sakura has to swallow hard before she continues, “I'm sorry. I should have told you as soon as I figured it out and I didn’t, that was a major fuck up on my part.”

"It was,” he agrees, deadpan. It’s not his job to comfort her now, no matter how much it pains him. She hurt him worse in the first place.

Uncomfortable with his blank silence, Sakura mirrors his gesture awkwardly by wrapping her arms around her torso and chews on the inside of her cheek, “So, what’s going to happen now?”

Genma scoffs, almost offended by her assumption that _anything_ is going to happen right now, as he meets her wide green gaze with his brows furrowed. “Sakura, you know, you’re not just seeing _anyone_ , you’re seeing _my best friend._ My literal partner in crime. I have to look at his face at least 8 hours a day, can you imagine how that impacts us too?” he frowns at her deeply as he speaks and with every word bypassing his lips she looks more and more like a scolded child. Once again Genma finds Sakura incredibly young and he has trouble sorting his feelings on the matter.

It should turn him off of her, should ignite annoyance within him, not play with his heartstrings or pull him in further. He knows she got married young and hurt too soon, yet that shouldn’t be a free pass. It should not excuse any of this—but as she begins to gnaw on her bottom lip to hide that brief quiver of her chin, he feels his heart ache and Genma can’t tell if it is out of his own agony or because he can’t bear to see her like this. That’s troublesome enough in its very own way. 

With a sigh he rubs his face defeatedly and shakes his head; his skin still feels hot with anger under his trembling fingertips. “This is going to be such a mess.”

Sakura hardly dares to look hopeful, tries to ban her mind from jumping to conclusions, yet she cannot help her voice carry a smidge of lightness when she whispers hoarsely, “Does that mean—” But her voice breaks off before she can finish the sentence, reality slamming her in the chest at the brutally sharp look in his eyes.

Truth is, he wrangles with the answer to that question himself enough. His brain is full and empty at the same time and the answers keep clashing and overlapping. _Yes. No! Maybe—_

Rolling his thoroughly abused toothpick from left to right, Genma cloaks himself in resignation again as his shoulders tense once more. His voice strains with cold indignation, “I don’t know what to tell you right now. I have to think about this.”

This decision should not hit her as hard as it does, but Sakura still feels like her chest caves in. It aches in the hollows and pricks her skin from the inside where she thinks her ribs cracked. Her mind is blank again, wiped clean by feelings she did not want in the first place, for this exact reason; feelings she is now left to fend off on her own.

“Okay,” she whispers at last— _because really, what else could she say?_

Neither of them says _anything_ for a long time, until Genma sighs eventually and averts his eyes from her face. “I should go. We’re kind of expected back at the precinct.”

She nods numbly, accepting that apparently this is over for today—perhaps for good—and barely feels him brush her as he heads back to her office. But the contact sets off a practical rockslide of memories in her, gathered over the course of the past month and Sakura shudders under the phantom sensation of every single one of his touches. For what it’s worth, she can’t just submit to fate so placidly. It’s never been her style to just lay down, play dead and accept defeat without a fight. Before she hears the familiar creak of her doorknob Sakura’s throat works itself free from the clump lodged in there, and calls after him, “Genma, _wait_.”

He halts behind her; the way she says his name striking him still on the spot.

“Yes?” he presses out breathlessly as she turns around to him—slowly as though she’s treading water—and closes the few feet between them with heavy steps.

He can watch her chest heave with her shuddery breaths and his jaw tightens at the waver in her voice. “I just wanted you to know—no matter how you decide on this—that,” here she pauses briefly to wet her lower lip and draw in another shallow breath. “I— I really enjoyed my time with you and,” she pauses here, her voice growing thin, “‘ _not now’_ doesn’t mean ‘ _never_ ’.”

As cryptic as her last statement is, Genma understands it without any trouble, and his anger for her sparks to flame all anew again. A week ago he would have been _elated_ to hear these words from her, but now they just sting.

“Don’t say that.”

The bitterness of his tone coats the back of her throat like poison and Sakura wants to weep for the first time in a long while.

* * *

  
  


Neither of the two exchange a single word on their walk out of the hospital and in all archaic male fashion, choose to cloak themselves in stoic silence instead. Kakashi knows his partner better than the back of his hand, and that includes his habits and emotional workings. He is certain that right now Genma, above all, needs to _process_. There is nothing left for Kakashi to say, not at this point and he is patient enough to wait for Genma’s eventual decision.

As they cross the parking lot, overcast and depressing with thick grey clouds, Genma falls back. It’s so subtle, just a half step, that at first Kakashi doesn’t even notice until he nears the back of the cruiser. Then his friend calls out for him.

“Hey, Kakashi?”

“Yeah?”

He barely gets the time to turn around before hard knuckles connect with his jaw and Kakashi sees stars. Even after almost fifteen years Genma still has the right hook of a rising boxing star.

“That’s for not telling me we’re hooking up with the same girl, fuckface.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave me all your thoughts, i'm DYING to hear your feelings on the matter!!


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